
MARJM 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Cliap.__.^TCopyrignt Ho...: 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



BETTER THINGS 



FOR 



SONS OF GOD 



BY 



GEORGE T. LEMMON 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 

CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS 



1896 

L 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED- 



151R\2L5 
ccfl % 



4320 



Copyright, 1896, by 

EATON <& MAINS, 

New York. 



Eaton & Mains Press, 
150 Fifth Avenue, New York. 



To 
GEORGE D. HERRON 

and 

JOHN G. WOOLLEY, 

The Twin Baptists 

Who Herald the Political Coming of the 

KING 

Whom I Adore, 

This Message is Dedicated. 



CONTENTS, 



i. 

PAGE. 

Visions i 



II. 
Fire 28 



III. 
Temples B „. . 65 

IV. 

The Work of the Sons of God 94 

V. 
The Equipment of the Sons of God.. 145 



BETTER THINGS 

FOR SONS OF GOD. 



VISIONS. 

" God having provided some better thing for us, that they 
without us should not be made perfect " (Heb. xi, 40). 

VISIONS of centuries photograph their 
wonders upon our sensitized brain. 
History, that marvelous phonograph of 
the millenniums of the past, unrolls its 
waxen scroll, and the voices of those who 
sleep after arousing the world speak to the 
sons of to-day. The eternal reach of the 
mind within us grasps the deeds which 
make illustrious the record of the long ago, 
and the heroes of all centuries march past 
us like an army on review. God lends us 
of his omniscience, and with eyes behold- 
ing fairer scenes than the sensuous visions 



8 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

of the flesh we are enraptured as we pass 
through the gallery of the ages, where 
4 ' the invisible things of him from the 
creation of the world are clearly see;i, 
being " at least faintly " understood by " us 
who are made in the image of God, and are 
blessed of him with the mind ' ' which was 
also in Christ Jesus." 

What visions are these which the camera 
of faith by the lens of revelation prints for 
us ! Enoch so keeps step with the majestic 
strides of Jehovah that the magnetism of 
the throne overcomes the attraction of the 
footstool, and the patriarch ascends the 
empyrean of the universe to the abode of 
the Deity. Abraham, master of the pil- 
grims, journeys forth from Ur before our 
eyes. Behold him before Pharaoh, the 
pyramids standing round! Yonder he 
meets King Melchizedek, rescued Lot one 
of his victorious train. There is his tent, 
wherein he is entertaining angels unawares ; 
and looking again you behold him pressing 
the son of promise to his bosom. Mount 
Moriah now lifts its frowning peak to our 
eager gaze. Come, kinetoscope, and illus- 
trate for us these swift-changing scenes. 



. VISIONS. 9 

The altar is made, the kindling fagots 
already blaze, the human sacrifice is 
bound. "Why, father, must I die?" 
The father-priest uplifts the knife, the 
promise ends in death, obedience receives 
its reward, He who spared not his own 
Son now spares the son of Sarah. The 
altar is all ablaze, and on it burns the 
sacrifice of God's providing; while in its 
reddened glow stand father and offered 
sacrifice in fond embrace. Look once again. 
Abraham has died in the faith, and as his 
sons entomb him in Machpelah's cave we 
behold his glorified spirit opening its 
"bosom" to welcome the home-coming 
Lazaruses from every clime. 

Now let us rub our eyes for the longer, 
fuller vision. Whom shall we see ? Moses, 
the master of the law. Behold the 
" goodly child 9i rocked by the wavelets of 
the Nile. Yonder he leads the armies of 
Pharaoh to conquest after conquest. There 
the Abrahamic blood within him boils as 
the Egyptian's lash falls upon the bare back 
of an Israelite, and the rising moon tells of 
one more mummy in Egypt. How swiftly 
now his life paints visions of wonders on 



10 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

the canvas of time ! Look upon the bush, 
flaming but unconsumed, and hear the 
phonograph of revelation as it repeats the 
words of the Eternal, who, through chang- 
ing centuries, crumbling empires, wasting 
nations, and dying races, still exclaims, 
" I am that Iam!" Behold the plagues: 
Rivers of blood ; roads and horses, homes 
and temples, beds and kneading-troughs, 
thick with frogs; lice covering the bodies 
of a race with a garment of itching ; flies 
in such pestering swarms that the light of 
the sun is darkened; ulcered cattle bel- 
lowing unto death in the very palaces of 
royalty ; a nation diseased to a man, each 
one nursing his painful " boil breaking 
forth with blains;" the heavens, angry at 
such disobedience of their Master, pour 
forth their sharpened knives of hail to cut 
and maim a race and their possessions; 
winds gather themselves, and filling their 
chariots with the locusts of destruction, 
bear them to the accursed land ; the sun, 
unable to bear such sickening horrors, veils 
its face, and darkness hides but deepens 
the anguish of the days; darkness with- 
draws its sable curtain, but only to speed 



VISIONS. 11 

the work of the angel of death, who, with 
sword for brush, paints in a night the 
awful scene which the divine penman in- 
scribed, "Not a house where there was not 
one dead." 

But turn to fairer visions. Moses stands 
with ear alert to catch the whisperings of 
Divinity. At his side Aaron holds the 
shepherd's rod which serves in the hand of 
a man as the scepter of God. Moses hears. 
The rod touches the crimsoned flood of 
Egypt's river god, and the blood is trans- 
formed to a cleansing, refreshing stream. 
Again he hears, and at his bidding the croak- 
ing of the frogs ' l died out. " Again he hears, 
and " the finger of God," which through his 
created louse had written unelean upon the 
skin of Pharaoh and his priests and people, 
is withdrawn by the waving of the leader's 
hands. Again he hears ; at his bidding the 
flies remove and the people bind up their 
stinging wounds. Again he hears, and, 
putting God's word on the wings of the 
morning, it bears throughout Egypt healing 
for boils and cleansing for blains. Again 
he hears, and, going " out of the city, 
spread abroad his hands unto the Lord, 



12 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

and the thunders and hail ceased." Again 
he hears; the winds are obedient to his 
word, and blowing strong from the 
west take away the locusts they had 
brought from the east. Again he hears; 
the sun obeys him and shines once more 
upon the land of desolation. Again he 
hears; men obey him, the lintel of every 
Hebrew home is sprinkled ' ' with the 
blood of beasts on Jewish altars slain," and 
the firstborn of the captives live to become 
the conquering host of Canaan. Again he 
hears; the rod touches the Red Sea, and 
they clear an avenue for the passage of his 
people. It touches the same waters once 
more, and they "come again upon the 
Egyptians," and they were seen " no more 
forever." The waters of Marah were 
bitter, like the trials of life ; he sweetened 
them with the tree, as our Marahs are 
sweetened by the Tree of Calvary. The 
people hunger; he hears the Voice, and 
they are fed with " angels* food," as are we 
with the Bread sent down from heaven. 
They were stung by fiery serpents, as are 
we to this day ; and even as he lifted up 
the brazen serpent in the wilderness for 



VISIONS. 13 

the healing of the sin-smitten of his people, 
so Christ lifted tip heals those who look 
with faith to-day. Their souls were as 
thirsty as ours in the wilderness of sin ; he 
touched the rock, and they found water as 
good to their bodies as are the waters 
which gush from the Rock of Ages to our 
souls. Again he hears ; the tabernacle for 
the abode of the glory of the Most High 
rises in the heart of the camp. Again he 
hears, not a still small voice, but thunders 
which reverberated from mountain to moun- 
tain, echoed from sea to sea, and filled the 
valleys with the sound, not of an " it " that is 
forever silent, but of a God who eternally 
speaketh. Now it is not a mere bush that 
burns, yet is not consumed ; but a whole 
mountain is ablaze with fire, yet abides 
without destruction. Amid the smoke that 
rises from this supernal flame the Lord 
descends, and confers upon Moses the peer- 
less dignity of proclaiming the law of 
Jehovah unto this and every people w T ho 
dwell on earth. Yet again this servant of 
the Lord heard his voice. He ascends to 
the peak of " Nebo's lonely mountain." 
Stricken with years, the telescope of love 



14 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

and prophecy springs to his eyes. Pisgah's 
top is reached. 

11 Visions of rapture burst on his sight." 

There at his feet moans the Sea of Death. 
Yonder, winding southward from Hermon's 
snowy mountain, rushes the turbid Jordan. 
Jerusalem, not yet " the golden," is perched 
on Abraham's mountain, thirty miles over 
that river. Far to the north rise Gerizim 
and Ebal, mounts of blessing and of curs- 
ing. Beyond the Dead Sea stretches the 
vast wilderness where centuries later the 
"seed of the woman is to bruise the ser- 
pent's head." Far, far to the west the blue 
waves of the Mediterranean kiss the shores 
of the promised land. Backward toward 
the south is the path the old lawgiver has 
traveled until this hour. Meribah seems to 
rise, and his sin rises with it; the telescope 
falls, for the tired eyes are suffused with 
tears, sight becomes dim, the old familiar 
Voice seems whispering in his ears, mur- 
muring winds sing a lullaby of rest, and, 1 
worn with the toil of sixscore years, the 
warrior falls asleep. An old legend tells 
us God kissed him while he slept. The 



VISIONS. 15 

touch of that beatific kiss changed corrup- 
tion to incorruption, and the mortal put on 
immortality. And there, 

" In a vale in the land of Moab, 

There lies a lonely grave ; 
But no man dug that sepulcher, 

And no man saw it e'er, 
For the angels of God upturned the sod 

And laid the dead man there. 

" That was the grandest funeral 

That ever passed on earth ; 
But no man heard the tramping, 

Or saw the train go forth. 

11 This was the bravest warrior 

That ever buckled sword ; 
This the most gifted poet 

That ever breathed a word ; 
And never earth's philosopher 

Traced with his golden pen 
On the deathless page truths half so sage 

As he wrote down for men. 

" And had he not high honor ? 

The hillside for his pall ; 
To lie in state while angels wait, 

With stars for tapers tall ; 
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, 

Over his bier to wave, 
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, 

To lay him in the grave." 

" i O God, can it be that a sinner like 
me ' can have some better thing provided 



16 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

for him than thou didst grant to this 
blessed servant of thine? Has not Paul 
made a mistake when he writes, ' That they 
without us ' — that Moses without me — 
' should not be made perfect?' Nay. Thy 
word is truth. The mysteries of the full- 
ness of thy love unfold with the ages. 
What * better thing ' hast thou provided 
me than to thy servant of old? My throb- 
bing heart seems to hear a Voice, the music 
of whose tone is supremely sweet, saying : 
' Go in spirit to Nebo's top. Look forth 
from the same eyrie that Moses did, and let 
thy heart tell thee of the ' better thing/ " 

Then let us in the spirit on this Lord's 
Day, with faith and love to increase our 
vision, 

" Stand where Moses stood, 
And view the landscape o'er." 

Straight toward the west, over the Sea of 
Death, beyond range on range of hills, 
nestling like a jewel on the brow of the 
mountain, is Bethlehem of Judea, whose 
manger cradle is the shrine of millions 
and the adored of our hearts. To test our 
vision let us turn our eyes to the north and 
follow the zigzag Jordan till it leads us to 



VISIONS. 17 

Galilee. There, a few miles from the sea, 
is Nazareth, out of which came One whose 
name is to us blessed above every name. 
This side of Nazareth is Nain, where my 
Jesus mastered death, and beyond is Cana, 
where 

11 The modest water, awed by power divine, 
Confessed its God, and, blushing, turned to wine." 

Near to Nazareth is Tabor, Mount of Trans- 
figuration, where Jesus stood enthroned in 
those habiliments of glory which were re- 
signed when unto us was born a Saviour. 
Nor does he stand alone. Nebo cannot 
contain one who talked with God as friend 
to friend, and Moses, clothed upon with 
immortality, now presses foot upon the 
promised land; Elijah once more has 
mounted his fire chariot, and from the Car- 
mel of the skies has ridden fast to hail his 
Lord. Tabor, thou art not the least of the 
mountains of Israel ! Even as it was good 
for the Galileans to be upon thee that historic 
day, so it is good for our seeking spirits to 
behold thee from afar, and from thy beati- 
fic vision catch glimpses of the glory that 
shall be ours when we, too, become like 
Jesus and share the glory of his throne. 



18 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

There nestled by the waters of Galilee is 
Magdala, with its memories of her who loved 
Him much because she was much forgiven ; 
Capernaum, where Jesus loved to dwejl; 
Bethsaida, from whence Peter and James 
and John went out to be " fishers of men/' 
On those now blue waves, then lashed to fury, 
Jesus w T alked. On yonder plain the com- 
passionate Son of Man fed the five thousand. 
More distant is Safed, city "set upon a 
a hill," whose light cannot be hid ; and there, 
the everlasting hills for its pulpit, and the 
rolling slopes for cushions soft, is the Mount 
of Beatitudes, from whence has echoed round 
the globe those words such as never man 
spake before nor since — words which have 
tuned the hearts of men of all climes and 
races to sing and pray and labor for the day 
when there shall be realized the Federation 
of the world and the Brotherhood of man. 

Once again look west. Not far from 
11 cool Siloam's shady rill " is Bethany, fra- 
grant with memories of Mary and Martha, 
and that good scribe who wrote his name 
within the vale of death, and then, obedient 
to the call of the best of friends, came back 
to serve a little longer in this vale of tears. 



VISIONS. 19 

And now look long. There is Jerusalem ! 
City ever dear to all who love the name 
of Jesus. Its glory never fades; the in- 
terest of the Christian's heart in the holy 
city never wanes. There is the temple 
which Jesus cleansed ; there Pilate's judg- 
ment hall, where the coward of the ages 
cringed before a lawless mob. Yonder is 
Gethsemane, garden of sorrows ; and there 
the Via Dolorosa, over which Christ our pass- 
over trod his weary, cross-burdened way. 
There is the mount of mounts — Calvary! 
name ever dear to me. Calvary, mount of 
triumph ! where Satan did his worst and 
failed. Calvary ! from whence flow mingled 
streams of water and of blood, increasing in 
volume as the ages roll, till not a land escapes 
its quickening touch, nor a race, nor a man 
is left without fountain for cleansing. Cal- 
vary! where God, with a cross as a 

1 ' Lever to uplift the earth, 
And roll it in another course," 

swept sin from the throne of its dominion 
and rolled the earth so close to heaven that 
it has become the vestibule to those realms 
of endless love and life and joy. 

Thither is the tomb where Rome, arrogant 



20 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

mistress of the world, thought to confine 
Him whom Jewish hatred slew. But shall 
rocks bid defiance to Him who formed them ? 
Shall swathing graveclothes find rest upon 
Him whose glory studs the heavens? Shall 
deathly spices continue on Him who gave to 
the winds their balmy incense, enriched the 
trees with their sweet aroma, and embalmed 
the world in the ambrosial perfume of the 
beauteous flowers ? Nay. That Arimathean 
tomb which now we view from Pisgah's lofty 
peak is emblem of a conquered hell, a van- 
quished death. And, as we look, there seems 
to be one in form like an angel, standing 
near that vacant tomb, with an air of heav- 
enly grace and joy, he points the glance of 
the groveling Satan who cumbers the ground 
to the ironical query which is blazoned on 
the portal, "O death, where is thy sting? 
O grave, where is thy victory ?" Satan 
finds no voice to answer, but ten thousand 
times ten thousand voices swell the glorious 
reply, c< Death is swallowed up in victory." 
Jerusalem, hast thou one glory more for 
mortal eye to see ? Yea ; here is Olivet — Oli- 
vet! where Jesus wept for thee. Olivet! 
where the Man of sorrows often went 



VISIONS. 21 

alone to pray. Olivet! where mankind 
was commissioned to make perfect the 
work of the Redeemer and lead " all 
people M into the kingdom of his glory. 
Olivet! It was his closet; and is prayer 
not a chariot? Aye; for here, where he 
had been oft alone in the still hours of the 
night, there now come band on band of 
angels, arrayed in all the livery of heaven. 
Pile on file, wing locking wing, rise this 
host of celestial warriors; the shining of 
their robes puts the sun to shame, the 
music of their harps transcends the descrip- 
tion of human speech — the heart can only 
wonder and rejoice, — the singing of their 
carols makes known who taught ' ' the sons 
of the morning to sing together;" the fra- 
grance of their waving palms drives back 
the stench of sin from the nostrils of the 
Son of God and lets him breathe once 
again the sweet winds of purity which blow 
fresh from Jehovah's throne. He breathes 
that air, and earth can hold his form no 
more. O Purity, how fair thy garments 
are ! How matchless is the magnetism of 
thy beauty! The Son of God feels thy 
power. He loves the world and died to 



22 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

save it from its sin ; but the attraction of 
heaven's purity is overpowering, and bid- 
ding us to be mastered by the same all- 
holy force Jesus of Nazareth lifts his 
nail-scarred hands in benediction on the 
awe-crushed company on Olivet's crown. 
Purity, thou hast conquered. The Master 
of purity rises evermore to dwell with thee. 
The angelic host sing the anthem of thy 
victory. A cloud — reservoir of thy scented 
mist — rolls beneath earth's Saviour's feet, 
and thy conquest is complete. 

See the Saviour's cloud-chariot rise ! 
Earth gives back her Lord. Heaven re- 
ceives her King. But think who it is who 
now mounts up and up and up through 
that avenue of archangels. He is the Son 
of God. True, and just as true is it that 
he is the son of Mary. It is for the Son of 
Man that those everlasting doors are lifted 
up. Hallelujah ! It is a man, a man who 
was made in all points as are we, who 
mounts yon empyrean. It is a man of the 
seed of the woman, common mother of us 
all, to whom those angels sing. It is a 
man, a child of Abraham, whose children 
are we, before whom those attendant arch- 



VISIONS. 23 

angels, with Michael and Gabriel at their 
head, bend low and lay down the scepters 
of their power. It is a man, a man like us, 
full of sorrows and acquainted with grief, a 
man who on yonder hilltop died, who laid 
three days a corpse in yonder tomb, who 
now lives and flies on the wings of purity 
through those pearly gates. It is a man, a 
man ! hear it, O ye who sorrow, a man ! 
Nay, but it is my brother, my brother 
and yours, who now is welcomed to the 
bosom of the Father and enthroned as King 
of kings ! Olivet, thy closet has a doorway 
into paradise ! Sing now thy song : 

" Be lifted up, ye everlasting doors ! 
Welcome his feet, ye bright and crystal floors ! 
The mighty Victor enters with his train, 
And brings the trophies of his blood and pain ; 
He beareth jewels from the sands of Time, 
And brilliants rescued from the seas of crime. 
He leads captivity a captive in, 
And holds the keys of death and hell and sin. 
Within his hands are dark and mournful scars, 
But on his brow are radiant, flashing stars. 
He reascends the throne, and far and wide 
Resounds the honors of the ' Crucified.' 
His native heaven is jubilant with song, 
And choral hosts tell of his triumphs long ; 
The embassy of love a world hath won, 
And Christ is King. His royal reign begun 
Shall be the joy of endless years." 



24 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Heart of mine, hast tliou learned the se- 
cret of these visions? Hast thou discerned 
that " better thing " which God hath pro- 
vided thee? What was there in thy visions 
from Pisgah's top which Moses did not 
see when he stood there? What? Speak 
out, that the world may hear. CHRIST ! 
O matchless wonder ! Moses, what wouldst 
thou have given that day on Pisgah to 
have beheld what it is mine to see? Silent ! 
Aye, for even thy heavenly tongue cannot 
express the infinite longing that was in thy 
soul to behold the day of the Son of Man. 
Measure these visions, fellow-Christian, and 
learn the greatness of this better provision 
God has made for you. For Moses there 
was no Bethlehem, but there unto you was 
" born a Saviour/' For Moses there was the 
awful majesty of Sinai, when he would 
commune with God ; for you there is Beth- 
any, where with Mary you can sit at Jesus's 
feet and let thy heart throb nigh to his. 
For Moses Galilee was only a splendid 
watering place for his children and their 
cattle ; to you it is hallowed with memories 
that will survive the tomb. Jacob's well 
was precious to Moses for his father's sake ; 



VISIONS. 25 

to you it is precious because of the words 
of Jesus to her of Samaria, giving you the 
glad tidings that, " though your sins be as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." 
The wilderness had no wonder for Israel's 
leader, but to you it speaks of the conflict 
of the ages and the thrilling triumph of 
Him through whom you also may triumph 
gloriously. To Moses Jerusalem was but 
the stronghold of an evil tribe which had 
usurped Moriah, the altar of Abraham. 
To you Jerusalem, though its shrines 
are yet usurped by sensual Mohammed- 
anism and filled with the strife of many 
tongues, is forever the city of the King, 
whither thy spirit takes its pilgrimage, to 
walk the streets and view the scenes hal- 
lowed by the presence of your Lord. For 
Moses Tabor had no shining glories ; Zion 
no upper room precious for its supper of 
remembrance and blessed prayer; Geth- 
semane told no story of bleeding love ; 
Calvary lifted no cross to cheer his heart 
with hope ; the valley of Jehoshaphat con- 
tained no riven tomb to bid his soul good 
cheer when he reached the parting of the 
ways ; and Olivet sent no gleam of holy 



26 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

radiance athwart the pathway the grand 
old pilgrim knew he soon must travel. 
Think of these things, then tell me if God 
has not " provided some better thing " for 
you than the unfolding of his purpose had 
made known to Moses. Take Tabor, and 
the wilderness, and Zion, and Gethsemane, 
and Calvary, and empty tomb, and Olivet 
out of thy memory's keeping. Pluck these 
blessings from thy heart; let Satan still 
stalk a challenging Goliath through the 
wilderness of thy life ; let blackness hide 
that mountain whence you caught a vision 
of the glories which belong not only to 
your Lord, but to those also who live so as 
to wake some sweet day in his blessed like- 
ness. Cease whispering your " Amen " to 
that prayer which plead with the Father 
that the Son and you might be one, even 
as they were one, thus pleading that you 
should be one with God. Return to Jewish 
lamb and paschal feast. Cover up that blood 
which dyed Gethsemane's moss, the cup is 
not yet ready. Do I not hear you cry, ' * O 
spare the cross, leave me that hope in the 
thickening gloom "? Nay, Moses beheld 
it not. Take down the cross, and when the 



VISIONS. 27 

serpents bite yon, turn your eyes toward 
yonder brazen symbol. Joseph, you may 
enter thine own new tomb, nor have more 
light than Abraham was blessed with, when 
Machpelah opened unto him. Olivet is 
not yet the closet of the Son of Man, and 
has no ascension splendors to give wings 
to hope and surety to thy faith. Now, with 
all these gone, you stand where Moses 
stood. Pine you any longer for that good 
old time w r hen giants walked the earth ? Ask 
you any longer if Paul was mistaken when 
he wrote, " God having provided some 
better thing for us/' if you can only hold 
to these wondrous things which Moses's 
eye of flesh never beheld, nor faith full 
squarely grasped? Ah, no. If only we 
can still behold Goliath conquered by him 
of Judah's tribe ; if Tabor will still smile 
on us, and Zion still let us feed on broken 
body and drink of flowing blood ; if Geth- 
semane may only continue to teach me 
how to say, " Thy will, not mine, be done ; " 
if Calvary may still retain its cross, and 
let me sing with Paul, my brother, " In 
the cross of Christ I glory ;" if Joseph's 
tomb still be empty to tell me so mine will 



28 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

be ; if Olivet will still point my wearied 
eyes to the home whither my Jesus has 
gone to prepare a place for me ; if these 
things are left me, then will I sorrow no 
more; then will I repine no more' for 
living in a time like this ; then will I tell 
to all the earth the wonder, God hath pro- 
vided better things for me on earth than he 
did for Abraham my father. Mine eyes have 
viewed far grander scenes than ever blessed 
the eyes of Israel's aged leader. 

Did the sun of this little planetary sys- 
tem stand still on Gibeon when Joshua 
cried unto his Lord for help ? Then has 
the answer to my cry wrought a greater 
miracle, for the Son of God, who made 
heaven and earth, and all that in them is, 
stood still for me on Calvary, nor hasted to 
go down till my victory was made sure. 
O plain of Esdraelon, how many battles have 
dyed thy sod with blood ! But thy maddened 
fray was ever for earthly gain ; Gethsemane's 
triumph over self is by far the ' ' better 
thing." Samuel, thy begrudging honor it 
was to crown Israel's king, but mine it is 
with joyful heart to crown , and be crowned of, 
" great David's greater Son/' David, thou 



VISIONS. 29 

couldest sing, ' ' The Lord is my shepherd ; I 
shall not want," but to me is given the bet- 
ter song, "I know whom I have believed, 
and am persuaded that he is able to keep 
that which I have committed unto him 
against that day." Elijah, thou didst be- 
hold the fire descend and consume thy sacri- 
fice and proclaim that the Lord was God, but 
I have seen the fire descending like a cloven 
tongue, and, making an offering for sin, fit 
those by it anointed to proclaim the un- 
searchable riches of that God as he is in Christ 
Jesus my Lord. Jeremiah, thou hast made 
me weep as thy broken heart mourned the 
destruction of thy people, but mine ears have 
also heard Paul's paean of hallelujahs, ' l Who 
shall Separate us from the love of Christ ? 
shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, 
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 
. . . Nay, in all these things we are more than 
conquerors through him that loved us. For I 
am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, 
nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love 
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 



30 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Ezekiel, I liave been enraptured with thy 
vision of the wheels, but mine eyes have 
seen the forward movement of those wheels 
until the Spirit of them has encircled the 
earth. Isaiah, thy Lamb is no longer dulnb, 
the echo of his voice has gone forth to the 
ends of the world. Thy little, thy holy 
Child has been called Jesus by millions upon 
millions of gladdened hearts, and he has led 
them one by one to the common Father of 
us all, to receive from him the inheritance 
of the saints in light. And in these later 
times I have heard such an one as John the 
aged exclaim in his tones of affluent love, 
1 ' Behold what manner of love the Father 
hath bestowed upon us, that we should be 
called the sons of God. . . . Beloved, now are 
we the sons of God, and it doth not yet ap- 
pear what we shall be : but we know that 
when he shall appear, we shall be like him : 
for we shall see him as he is." Therefore 
do we look for God to provide in the pres- 
ent, and in the future, some even "better 
thing " for us than the past has yet revealed, 
and, praising him for letting our eyes behold, 
and our lives be lived in a day that the 
mighty of old longed to see, let us with holy 



VISIONS. 31 

reverence diligently inquire what there is 
for us to do, that we may bring unto perfec- 
tion the labors of those who have blessed the 
earth with mighty works in the days long 
past. Meanwhile, as we look still further 
for the "better thing" provided us than 
blessed God's toilers in the past, and as we 
search the present for its revelations of the 
will of God, let us, with throbbing hearts, 
that speak of unfulfilled desires, with eyes 
eager to behold that beauty of holiness 
which like an aurora of glory shall spread 
round the world, when God's will is done on 
earth as it is in heaven ; with ears that listen 
steady for every whisper of that * ' still small 
voice;" with minds so filled with love of 
truth that they become fit tablets for God to 
write the hid treasures of his wisdom on, 
let us do our best to apprehend the sublim- 
ity of that life which Christ made known 
should be ours, when on earth we shall have 
become perfect, even as our Father in 
heaven is perfect. 



32 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD, 



II. 

FIRE. 

THAT God has provided one better thing 
for us who live to-day than the unfold- 
ing of the measureless love of his infinite 
purpose permitted him to provide to our 
fathers we are now most confident. Ours 
it is to behold with unspeakable delight the 
face of the Son of God. In our ears have 
sounded words which poured forth in di- 
vinest accents from the very heart of that 
eternal Word which " was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us." The darkness of our 
day has been riven by the widespreading 
beams of light which flame from the divine 
person of this Holy One. The rising of 
this Sun of righteousness has by the heal- 
ing of his wings turned the gloom of our 
souls into glorious day, and by a power 
which is not of ourselves we do now with 
great joy behold that " Light which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world/ ' 
He by whom all things were made, and in 



FIRE. 33 

whom is that life which was, yea, is, the 
light of men ; he has come, and the world 
is his ; and it is our kingly privilege to be- 
hold ' * his glory, the glory as of the only 
begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth." 

11 God manifest in the flesh !" How stu- 
pendous a mystery is this! God, the eter- 
nal, shrouding himself with time-decaying 
flesh. God, the one majesty of the uni- 
verse, clothing himself with the humility of 
human position. God, the omnipotent, be- 
coming weak as newborn babe. God, the 
pure, entering man's impure race. Such 
are faint graspings of our earth-narrowed 
minds as we seek to comprehend this won- 
der of redemption. Shall we despair be- 
cause we cannot better comprehend? No. 
Rather let the sublimity of the truth lift 
faith to those altitudes where this spiritual 
faculty can take hold upon things which are 
spiritually discerned. 

Why was such a marvel necessary? Be- 
cause man should serve God aright, and to 
serve God aright man must know God 
aright. That necessary knowledge of God 
was possible to man only through such a 



34 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

revelation of the heart of God as was made 
in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Rear 
all the grandest men of earth's nobility, 
whose knighthood is the reward of race- 
helping achievement, in one ideal man, 
and with him you could no more measure 
God than universe with shooting star. 
Compare the flight of this sparrow to the 
cycling of yonder sun. Compare the inches 
of my greatest height to the infinite reaches 
of the stellar measures. Gain you by such 
comparisons any comprehension of the 
speed of the orb of day or the magnitude 
of the universe? Nay. No more can you 
by studying the greatest men apprehend 
the infinitude of God. Yet it was this 
w r ondrous being, whose glory fills the 
heavens; whose eternity has bound the 
centuries and the ages together; whose 
power from nothing wrought out the jew- 
eled fabric of the universe ; whose wisdom 
shines from every star, distills in the dew 
of every rain, sends forth its perfume from 
every flower, and walks the earth in every 
beast and every man ; whose truth satisfies 
that highest product of the earth, the 
human mind ; whose love takes hold upon 



FIRE. 35 

the soul, that mysterious factor of human 
life which is beyond the ken of earthly 
search, and binds it to his very heart; 
whose character is the beauty of holiness ; 
whose throne is righteousness, and whose 
scepter is peace; it is this Being before 
whom all in heaven do bow themselves and 
" Holy, holy, holy," cry; this God, glorious 
in holiness, perfect in righteousness, doing 
wonders, that has taken up his abode with 
man. This measureless Jehovah has been 
compassed by the Nazarene, that even as 
in him dwelt the fullness of the Godhead 
bodily, so in us should dwell all the fullness 
of God. The divine spirit has been en- 
shrined in the life of the Son of man, that 
even as the life he lived was in the spirit 
and not the flesh, so our mortal body should 
be quickened by this same boundless spirit 
dwelling in us. This all-glorious life, this 
God who endureth forever, has been taber- 
nacled in a house of clay, fashioned by the 
agony of a daughter of Eve, that even as 
the life which he lived was a life hid in 
God his Father, so the life which we live 
should be hid with him in God. Thus the 
earth has become the abode of the Deity. 



36 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Man has become the temple of Jehovah. 
Immortal life has by the indwelling Spirit 
of the Most High flooded the house of flesh 
with the fullness of God, and when tim,e, 
as an angel's finger, unties the ribbon 
which binds spirit to flesh, the spirit of the 
righteous soars to realms ineffable to be at 
home with God. 

" Such knowledge is too wonderful for 
me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it." 
With Job my mind reels when I try to think 
what all this means — the fullness of God 
entering within me, that the fullness of Satan 
may no more abide there and devour me. 
' i How precious also are thy thoughts unto 
me, O God ! how great is the sum of them." 
But how am I to understand them ? Unto 
us has been given this better thing. The 
Christ whom our fathers longed to see has 
stood before us and made such revelations 
of the wonders prepared for us here, as well 
as hereafter, that our eyes have grown weary 
with grandeur. Our minds seem unable to 
grasp the fullness of the provision of grace, 
and with hearts faint and anguished I be- 
lieve your spirit would exclaim with mine : 

i ' The Christ — the expectation of the ages 



FIRE. 37 

— has come ! God has provided me some 

I better thing ' than was provided to the 
saints of old ; but woe to me ! for I know not 
what to do with this better thing. I have a 
jewel of priceless worth, but know not how 
to set it in my life. I have found the Christ, 
but ere I knew him he passed from me to 
the skies. I know that my Redeemer liveth, 
but O, who will teach me how to live that I 
may behold him in glory? " 

So cries the soul, and so it cries never in 
vain. Man could not know God till Christ 
revealed him, and the truth forces itself 
home upon us, man cannot know Christ until 
he is further taught. Where, then, shall the 
knowledge be found ? The way to an answer 
comes in the remembrance of the Master's 
words, " Search the Scriptures/' Let us 
then search the book to-day for this other 

II better thing" which now seems so need- 
ful, and as we search will it not be best for 
each to lift to God the prayer : 

" Search the Scriptures! Yes, I will. But 
O, my Father, thou must help me in the 
search. Touch my mind, and with thine 
own finger write thy wisdom there. Open 
thou mine ears to hear thy word of peace. 



38 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Enlarge my vision , that it may view the wide- 
ness of thy eternal purpose. O my Father, 
even as an earthly parent delights to teach 
its offspring truth, take thou delight in teach- 
ing me, not wearying with my dullness in 
learning. Feed thou my hungry mind with 
the eternal bread of truth. Let my thirsty 
soul drink from that fountain of thine own 
being out of which proceedeth the issues of 
life. Lead me unto all truth, then shall I 
know Christ, thy Son, whom to know is life 
eternal; and when I say, Amen, let my 
heart believe its deepest meaning — Amen. 
So shall it be." 

The scroll of history rolls back and back 
until we behold a day when the world was 
young. In yonder valley, far away in the 
distance, is the bower home of the parents 
of our race. Before it a light flames between 
earth and heaven. It is the flaming sword 
which still stands guard ' ' to keep the way 
of the tree of life." From Adam's hut 
visions of Eden and its lovely, enchanting 
shades are plainly seen, contrasting strangely 
with the thorns and thistles which infest 
the soil about the wanderer's home. It is 
the Sabbath day, and, having learned from 



FIRE. 39 

the God who formed them to hallow it by 
sacred rest, we find Eve and Adam with 
faces turned toward that garden which was 
once their home, reverently lifting heart and 
thought to God. Their boys, now grown to 
manhood's years, have gone to yonder moun- 
tain to offer sacrifice unto God. Seeking 
them, we find the altars which crown the 
mountain top. Here is that of Cain, the 
eldest, on which, piled high, are the first 
fruits of his arduous toil. There is Abel's. 
On it the most perfect among ' ' the first- 
lings of his flock." Cain, we have no mis- 
sion now to repeat thy shame. Stand there 
beside thine altar, and may the shades of 
oblivion hide thee from the gaze of men. 
Abel, we would watch thee. What lesson 
wilt thou teach us ? The sacrifice is ready ; 
Abel kneels and implores for his offering 
the favor of the Creator. Then from the 
heavens there comes a flash of fire ; it ignites 
the leaves, it burns the wood, it licks up the 
blood, it consumes the sacrifice, and Abel, 
his heart big with joy, his eye bright with 
hallowed wonder, his body exhilarated with 
a strange, first-felt emotion, parts his lips, 
and there ascends to heaven the first carol 



40 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

of praise to the great Creator which he 
has heard from throat of man. The birds 
hear the melody of this music of a human 
soul that is at peace with God and owned of 
him, and join the chorus; the winds hymn 
it round the heavens ; the waters that dash 
down the mountain side to the rivers beyond 
seem to ripple to the cadence of Abel's song ; 
and the trees appear to wave their fragrant 
branches in rapturous unison. And why not ? 
A soul has cried to God for witness of its devo- 
tion unto him, and God by fire has answered 
and consumed the offering ; and when thus 
owned of God who would not sing for joy? 
For " ye shall go out with joy, and be led 
forth with praise ; the mountains and the 
hills shall break forth before you into sing- 
ing, and all the trees of the field shall clap 
their hands." Abel, sing on, and may mul- 
titudes of thy fathers children learn the 
same new song ! 

Roll up the scroll and come to later 
times. Around Carmel's rugged slopes are 
ranged the thousands of the rebellious 
tribes. This is to be a great day in Israel. 
A spectacle shall greet the eye of men and 
angels to-day which shall scarcely be sur- 



FIRE. 41 

passed for marvelousness in all the coming 
centuries. To-day shall see the contest of 
gods. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and of 
Jacob will this day bide his displeasure 
while Baal does his worst. Behold the 
picture no words can paint ! 

" 'Tis a scene 
Such as again will not be, nor hath been, 
From utmost Dan to far Beersheba's bound." 

Earth's greatest painters have often tried 
to limn it. Poets have by it roused their 
muse to highest flights of genius. Music, 
in trying to re-enact its thrilling drama, 
has scored some of the greatest triumphs 
of the melodious art. Oratory to this 
mount has often come to touch its tongue 
with flame. 

From Carmel's brow survey the land and 
sea. There is left not one shrub of green on 
all that stately plain. Three years and more 
have passed since those deep vaults of 
heaven have been the race course for rain- 
refreshing clouds. No drop of dew has 
fallen for these many days, and every 
shrub and vine has withered; the trees 
have grown aged and mother but a few 
scraggy leaves ; the plain is but a scorched 



42 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

oven over which the hot burning winds 
drive the dust in blinding clouds. Kishon, 
the great brook at the mountain's foot, has 
had no water in it for many months. Not 
a field bears grain ; not a garden blooms 
a flower; not an olive gives oil; not a 
vineyard offers shade or refreshment; 
the mountain sides are as barren as the 
plain ; the valleys have no more green 
than the hilltops. Everywhere it is as if 
God had permitted hell to open wide its 
mouth and with blasts of hate burn away 
the beauty with which his providence 
clothes the earth. The multitude that 
have climbed the mountain are blinded by 
dust and heat ; their bodies are parched and 
hard, their faces blistered and sore from 
the awful heat of the days just passed. 
Think of it! Three years without rain, 
three years without dew, three years with- 
out the rising of a mist from yonder sea! 
No wonder it is a land of desolation and a 
people gaunt with want. How dearly are 
they paying for their refusal of the Most 
High ! Hear the trumpets ! The king 
comes, his chariot drawn by lean and 
thirsty steeds. Behind him, chanting their 



FIRE. 43 

ghoulish hymn, tramp the four hundred 
and fifty priests of Baal. They reach the 
summit of the mountain just before break 
of day, and as a blast of trumpets announces 
the arrival of Ahab a great rough man, 
clad in the garments of the desert, strides 
with fearless step toward Israel's king. 
Fierce and angry is the greeting Ahab 
gives the prophet, but this man of God is 
not to be frightened by the puppet of 
Jezebel. He gives the challenge: " I am 
alone; your priests number four hundred 
and fifty men. Let us have two altars, 
honestly built; let us have two bullocks 
for the sacrifice ; then let your priests call 
on the name of your gods, and I will call 
on the name of the Lord, and the God that 
answereth by fire, let him be God." 

1 ' Well spoken ! Well spoken ! " cry the peo- 
ple ; nor can the king rebuke them, for Baal 
is the god of fire. Surely the prophet of the 
Lord is a fool, or he would never have made 
fire the test. The people clamor that the 
test be quickly made, for Elijah has goaded 
them by his stinging query, * * How long halt 
ye between two opinions? if the Lord be God, 
follow him : but if Baal, then follow him." 



44 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

The gleams which begin to shoot from 
beyond the horizon tell the sun is soon to 
rise. Hurry, ye priests. Dare ye enter your 
god in this mighty contest? They dare. 
Speedily the altars are reared, the bullocks 
slain, the sacrifice ready. Now the morn- 
ing breaks ; up rises the sun on the contest 
of the gods. Four hundred and more of 
Baal's priests are on their knees supplicating 
the rising king of day to send a fiery beam 
to ignite their sacrifice. Up mounts the sun. 
Distant Hermon sparkles like a jeweled 
dome, every frozen flake a diamond. The 
sky hangs heavy with the dull glow of brass, 
the baked fields shine like floors of gold as 
the morning rays pour upon them, the 
Mediterranean dons her purple robe to re- 
ceive the coming king of light. But, though 
the sun thus paints its living colors upon the 
world, it sends no answer to the cry of those 
pleading priests. Higher and higher as- 
cends the sun. Louder and louder grow the 
cries of the devotees of Baal. * ' O Baal, hear 
us! O Baal, hear us!" has been the cry of 
all the morning hours, but " there was no 
voice, nor any that answered." Noon comes. 
Straight down upon the mountain top pour 



FIRE. 45 

the awful, scorching rays. Surely Baal will 
answer now. More vehement grow the cries 
as the sun and god answer not. The priests 
become frenzied with fear. Shall Baal desert 
them? Shall Baal not hear and answer? 
They leap upon the altar, cut themselves 
with their sacrificial knives, rend their 
clothes, tear their flowing beards, and with 
voices harsh by much exertion continue their 
wild cry. The rocks send back their mock- 
ing echo, " O Baal, hear us!" The valleys 
and caves and dens continue the frenzied 
prayer, " O Baal, hear us!" Even sullen sky 
and moaning sea seem to hold them in deri- 
sion and pass on and on the unanswered 
supplication, "O Baal, hear us!" The 
prophet of the Lord, who has stood beside his 
altar these weary hours, now lifts his voice 
to goad them with his relentless irony. The 
priests are faint with the exertions of many 
hours, but he bids them, ' < Cry aloud : for he 
is a god ; either he is talking, or he is pur- 
suing, or he is on a journey, or peradventure 
he sleepeth, and must be awaked." Ah, 
here is a hero. This is no angry man. 
These are no idle words. It is a prince of 
the truth, standing alone and pouring his 



46 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

contempt upon a god who has no ear for his 
people's need. But though the priests heed 
the scornful cry of Elijah, and lift their voices 
with the energy of despair, cut fresh wounds 
upon their bodies, Baal hears not, and as.the 
afternoon wears away they fall, one by one, 
beside their god-forsaken altar, still stretch- 
ing their hands in mute appeal toward the 
receding sun, and whispering, i i O Baal, hear 
us!" 

Now the hour for the offering of the even- 
ing sacrifice draws nigh. Elijah steps forth 
and commands the host, " Come unto me." 
They crowd about him and watch with eager 
eyes as he picks twelve stones, one for each of 
the tribes which the Lord had chosen, and 
with them repairs the now broken altar of 
Jehovah. They note the trench he digs 
about it, and when the wood is piled and 
the bullock laid upon it they are amazed at 
his strange command, " Fetch from yonder 
hidden spring four barrels of water and pour 
it over altar, wood, and sacrifice. ,, Again 
and again is the water brought, until it runs 
about the altar and the trench is full. 

Now all is ready. The bleeding priests 
of Baal are prostrate on the ground, only 



FIRE. 47 

now and then feebly muttering, "O Baal, 
hear us!" Yonder in Jerusalem, where 
the true God is worshiped, it is the hour 
of evening prayer. Elijah steps back from 
his altar. Every eye is on him. What a 
moment is this ! One man amid thousands 
dare stand for God. What mighty, glori- 
ous faith is this ! Four hundred and fifty 
priests have failed; can he, alone, do bet- 
ter? Elijah, thou art an ideal for my faith 
to reach! The prophet is pale, calm, glo- 
rious in his loneliness. 

11 The people stood like monuments of stone ; 

All was so still the listener might descry 

The murmuring Jordan, but his fount was dry." 

"Sublime, serene, that lone form looms, embathed in sun- 
set now, 
And more than mortal majesty is gleaming on his brow ; 
He prays ; his few calm, clarion tones on night's faint zephyrs 

swell : 
' Jehovah, God of Abraham, of Isaac, Israel, 
Let it be known this day that thou in Israel art Lord, 
And I thy servant all these things have done but at thy 
word ! * " 

The prayer is ended. The hush con- 
tinues on the throng. Every eye follows 
those of the prophet upturned toward the 
heavens. Will God hear? Will God an- 



48 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

swer? Will Elijah put to shame those 
priests who lift their passion -crimsoned 
faces to his own? Yes. God hears. God 
answers. Look ! The fire comes. It de- 
scends the heavens; it illuminates the 
mountain ; it falls on the altar ; it con- 
sumes the bullock ; it consumes the wood ; 
it consumes the stones; it consumes the 
dust ; it consumes the water ; and in con- 
suming these it has consumed the hopes 
of Baal. God has answered by fire. Elijah 
is victorious. Baal is in derision. There 
was a moment of awed silence ; 

" Then from a prostrate nation rose the long and loud 

acclaim : 
' The Lord is God ! the Lord is God ! Jehovah is his 

name ! ' 
From tribe to tribe, from crest to crest the shout rang glad 

and free, 
Like trumpets echoing through the hills, or thunders of the 

sea : 
1 The Lord is God ! the Lord is God !' The clouds roll back 

the sound, 
And airy tongues from height to height the answering shout 

rebound." 

On rolls the grand acclamation, startling 
the dry bones on the plains of Esdraelon 
and surging out over the sea ; but as it rolls 
on where is Elijah? There is a strange 



FIRE. 49 

sound in his ears, and running to the dis- 
comfited king he cries, " Get thee home, lest 
the floods overwhelm thee, for there is sound 
of abundance of rain." Then as the aston- 
ished, shouting people disperse, the prophet 
retires to pray. Soon arises the cloud not 
larger than a man's hand; but it grows 
fast, and soon " the heaven was black with 
clouds and wind, and there was a great 
rain," which sent the waters foaming 
through the brooks and gushing from in- 
numerable fountains to soften the thirsty 
ground ; and lo ! when the morrow's sun 
went down the hills and the valleys were 
clothed with springing green ; the trees had 
grown young again ; gardens promised 
glorious blooming, and the vinedresser 
sang once more as he trimmed his creeping 
vines. The contest of the gods is finished. 
God and one man have conquered. Fire 
brought to Elijah the favor of the Most 
High. Fire burned the thought into each 
mind, the Lord is God. Fire, with its 
lightning flash, owned Elijah as Jehovah's 
honored priest. Glorious indeed was the 
wonder and the testimony which God pro- 
vided to Elijah ; and dare we think with Paul 



50 BETTER THITGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

that God has " provided some better thing 
for us " than was granted to this mighty 
man of faith? Carmel is the most sublime 
wonder of the olden time ; the favor shown 
Elijah might well make angels covet his 
priestly mantle ; and shall favor more gra- 
cious, wonders more marvelous be granted 
unto us? Surely it cannot be. But even 
as we question memory floods us with a 
great remembrance, and with throbbing 
hearts we do by faith behold a greater 
wonder in which Elijah had no part. 

It is night, night in the holy land. 
The light of day has passed, and the 
silvery sheen of the moon now gleams 
upon the domes of the holy city. The 
' ' stars which stand as thick as dewdrops 
on the field of heaven " embroider the blue 
ether of the sky and stud the royal canopy 
which God ever spreads over the sleep of 
his children. It is a night of quietness; 
darkness has spread her wings and wrapped 
empires in her embrace, that not a sound 
may rise to break the stillness of our peace. 
But though all is still it is not the stillness 
of sleep, for in that little upper room more 
than a hundred are gathered on their 



FIRE. 51 

knees. Now and then a soul wings its 
way to the throne of grace in the melody 
of song, and sings until others take up the 
strain, and then upward swells until it 
seems 

" The song on its mighty pinions 
Took every living soul, and gently lifted it to heaven." 

Then the sweet breath of prayer rises to 
the God just praised, prayer that comes from 
hearts that have faltered not these many 
days, and is lifted now from one hundred 
hearts that beat in the unison of love. For 
ten days have they supplicated thus, nor 
has the good they craved been granted 
them, but now their 

" Prayer shall be up at heaven, and enter there, 
Ere sunrise." 

Not only shall it enter, but answer shall 
be sent in wondrous manner. On what 
street the windows of that upper room 
looked out we do not know, but gathered 
in it were a few names till then unknown 
to fame, but who were anointed there to 
victorious immortality. The roof of that 
room is open to the refreshing breath of 
night, and as the kneeling assembly lift 
their eyes they view the splendid creation 



52 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

of the God they worship. The night wears 
on, yet still they pray. Morning soon will 
dawn. lt Suddenly there came a sound from 
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind." Glo- 
rious wind ! grander than any that sounds 
through the tops of mulberry trees, swifter 
than any that speeds its way from empire 
to empire. Mysterious sound! Will it waft 
blessing to Pilate in Rome's palace yonder? 
Caiaphas, thou priest of the most high 
Pharisees, does it wing joy to thy impious 
soul? Temple of the living God, thou 
fount which Jesus cleansed, but to be pol- 
luted soon again with the attendance of 
Messianic murderers, does this mysterious 
wind blow the folds of thy riven veil 
together and unite them for evermore? 
No; the wind is freighted with no good 
to these, nor does it beat and surge like 
some awful gale leveling homes and 
sweeping streets, crushing life and de- 
stroying hope, but with its mighty rush it 
comes " straight from heaven." 

Ezekiel, thy wind has come. Already the 
dry bones begin to move. Joel, thy sons 
and daughters begin to prophesy. Zech- 
.ariah, the Spirit of grace anoints the 



FIRE. 53 

children of men. Awed, overwhelmed by 
this supernatural sound, the praying group 
bend lower, yet raise their heads to look 
whence this wondrous sound proceeds. 
Far, far away, a burst of glory fills the 
heavens. Swift as the light, noiseless as 
comes the daylight, descends this flaming 
glory. A second it glows upon the pin- 
nacles of the temple, but leaves it to its 
shade; a second more, and the Roman 
eagles shine at the touch of celestial 
splendor, but Rome receives no tribute 
from the skies. Down falls the flame into 
that little upper room. Tongues of fire, 
tongues of glory, tongues of power dart 
everywhere and rest on brow of every 
praying saint. Peter wears a crown of 
fire. John and James, thy mother need not 
worry more, for thou, too, art crowned with 
fire. Nathanael, ' ' come and see, " Andrew's 
head wears a crown of flame. Thomas, 
you dare not doubt, the tongue of fire is on 
thy head. Magdalene, thou art not for- 
gotten. Woman is lifted up and crowns 
of fire rest on Mary, and on Martha, and on 
that blessed mother of whom the Bible 
may well close its mention here. 



54 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

But shall they not all be burned? Shall 
fire come upon them and they be not con- 
sumed ? Abel's sacrifice was consumed when 
fire came ; even the altar of Elijah was con- 
sumed when fire came to Carmel. Can these 
live and that flame descend upon them? 
Wait. Was the bush which Moses saw con- 
sumed, though it burned? Was Sinai con- 
sumed, though it filled the heavens with its 
radiant flame? No. Why the difference? 
When Abel's sacrifice and Elijah's altar were 
consumed God sent fire from heaven, but to 
the burning bush and Sinai's peak God 
came in fire. So now these tongues of fire 
which rest upon the children of grace are not 
mere fire sent from heaven, but it is God 
come down from Jieaven to take up his abode 
in human hearts. Wonder no more that 
they were not consumed, but rejoice that as 
1 ' it sat upon each of them . . . they were all 
filled with the Holy Ghost." Not consumed, 
but increased ; not burned out, but burned 
into the kingdom. Not destroyed, but built 
up, that as the inheritors of the mighty 
promises of Jesus they may be filled with 
all the fullness of God. Is not this a " bet- 
ter thing"? Surely this is the proof that 



FIRE. 55 

our Jesus, that first ' ' better thing M which we 
so lately found, lives and has sent forth this 
in fulfillment of his many promises. This 
is that Holy Ghost who comes to teach us all 
things — to teach us Christ, to teach us holi- 
ness, to teach us service, and to teach us 
these by bringing to our remembrance the 
words of gracious wisdom uttered by God 
while tabernacled in the Son of Man. This 
is the mighty Spirit who comes to guide us 
in all truth, that we who live in time may 
know eternal truth, and by that truth become 
free from the bondage of sin and death. 
This divine Instructor will teach us what to 
do with Christ. This Guide will direct us 
how to set the first jewel which we found so 
fittingly in our life, that its shining will 
attract the heaven-longing hearts of friends 
and kindred. This Comforter shall give us 
cheer, though eternal glories veil our Saviour 
from our sight. This abiding Guest will 
teach the way of life, that as the redeemed 
of the Redeemer we may live like him here 
and live with him hereafter. 

Well may we bless God for this second 
" better thing " which makes the first more 
precious to us. The promises of Christ have 



56 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

been fulfilled. Not one Son of God, but 
million sons of God, in whom the Spirit ever 
testifieth to their divine sonship, now walk 
the earth. How the lowly are exalted! 
Abel's innocent sacrifice was consumed ; this 
fire in our hearts means that our sins are 
burned away. Before Moses the fiery pillar 
journeyed but forty years ; this ever-present 
Guide within us shall guide us evermore. 
The fire which on Jewish altars burned died 
out as the centuries passed, but this fire, 
kindled of God's Spirit in the breast of every 
child of his, shall flame through all eternity. 
Elijah had his Horeb as well as Carmel, but 
the whirlwind and fire of that day brought 
God no nearer to the prophet ; but now to 
us comes the holy wind — b?eath of God — 
and inbreathes itself in us. God comes in 
fire, and our souls are filled with energy 
divine ; the Voice which speaks witnesses 
with our enraptured spirits that we are the 
sons of God. 

Paul may well call this a better thing, 
and our souls may well rejoice that God 
gives us life in an age which, with all its 
vileness, still seems to the student of holy 
things a perpetual Pentecost. What won- 



FIRE. 57 

ders hath this second better thing, which, 
though denied in its gracious fullness 
to our fathers, has been provided unto 
us, wrought out in the history of the world 
since that upper room was lighted by 
tongues of fire ! The Pentecost of the 
one hundred and twenty souls was marvel- 
ous, yet the Pentecost which daily comes 
upon the three hundred and twenty millions 
who bow the knee to Jesus is still more 
marvelous. Not only in that upper room 
has God revealed himself by tongues of fire. 
That was but the first flaming torch lit of 
God to disperse the blackness of sin's foul 
night. Torch on torch has flamed since 
then, and to-day torch answers torch across 
mountain, sea, and continent. The glory 
which first shone in Jerusalem's little 
chamber has spread afar, and pentecostal 
flames now glowing everywhere seem to 
hail that day as near when ' ' the earth 
shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, 
as the waters cover the sea." 

Recount the conquest of the tongue of 
fire. It was that flaming tongue which 
introduced the church of the one hundred 
and twenty names to the knowledge of the 



58 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

world. On that now famous day the 
Church of Christ faced a hostile world, 
without a history, priest, or people. " She 
had only her two sacraments and her 
tongue of fire." But the reception of that 
great gift had filled Jerusalem with wonder, 
and the people flocked in hosts to hear a 
fisherman preach. How he preached! 
No smooth-toned words or meaningless 
phrases, but straight as arrows fly he 
charges home their fearful sin : 

" Men of Israel, hear these words; 
Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God 
among you by miracles and wonders and 
signs, which God did by him in the midst 
of you, as ye yourselves also know: him 
... ye have taken, and by wicked hands 
have crucified and slain.' ' 

But though they crucified him, yet now 
he is not dead. The grave could not hold 
him. He lives, and is now at " the right 
hand of God exalted ; ' from whence he 
shall soon come on the clouds of heaven, and 
will judge them ; yes, judge them, even his 
murderers. No wonder they fall on their 
knees ; no marvel that they call with awe- 
struck tones, " Men and brethren, what 



FIRE. 59 

shall we do to be saved? " Look! there is 
a man prostrate on the ground. Apostles 
pray around him, and soon uprises the 
victorious shout, " Jesus saves! Jesus saves!" 
and the first convert won to Christ by 
man's preaching shouts his great redemp- 
tion. What joy came to Peter that blissful 
moment ! What increase of faith to those 
who had tarried long for sign from God! 
But see ! there falls another ; two are saved ! 
Shout, Peter ! There is another ; three are 
saved ! Shout, ye twelve ! Thirty saved 
ones are lifting praise to God ! Shout, ye 
immortal one hundred and twenty! Look 
how thy numbers are increased ; three 
hundred souls are saved ! Shout, shout, ye 
expectant earth ! The day of God has come ; 
three thousand souls are saved ! three thou- 
sand sinners have become saints to-day ! 
three thousand who were chained to sin 
have burst their bonds and have now be- 
come the sons of God ! This is the pente- 
costal spectacle which inaugurated the 
triumphs of the soldiers of the cross. Day 
by day there was added to the Church such 
as should be saved, till Jerusalem was well 
leavened with the holy ferment. Then 



60 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

persecution came. Satan, like his dupe, the 
sinner, seems incapable of learning aught 
by failure. The cross but made possible 
the conquered tomb. Calvary was but the 
prelude to Olivet's angelic chorus. So now, 
the persecution, which scatters wide the 
saints, but builds a church wherever those 
saints are chased. 

It was the theory of Laplace that when 
the vast central mass of nebulous matter 
reached its utmost condensing point it 
hurled from it with incalculable velocity, 
yet to well-governed orbits, immense masses 
of its substance, each of these hurled-forth 
masses becoming the center of world sys- 
tems like our own, which filled the infinite 
spaces with their shining inhabitants. So 
the early persecutions pressed in the Church 
until kindred-sundering throes of forced ex- 
pulsion sent apostles and converts into all 
cities and lands. Where they went God 
went, Christ conquered, and the Holy Ghost 
built up monumental testimonies of his 
presence in the world. The close of the 
first century found Christianity established 
in nearly every part of the Roman empire, 
with the record of such converts as Paul, 



FIRE. 61 

Barnabas, Apollos, and Dorcas, to inspire 
the sacrifices of the coming years. The 
second century found the Catacombs full, 
waiting martyrs more plenty than pagan 
Rome could send to death, and Polycarp 
leaving his testimony to the Spirit who 
nerved his own. The third century closes 
amid awful persecution, but soon the spirit 
of the wheels rolls on, and Constantine the 
Great courts the favor of the rising Church, 
the Council of Nice assembles the faithful 
in holy conclave, and the fourth century is 
blessed with the glorious lives and heroic 
deaths of Eusebius, Athanasius, Augustine, 
and Chrysostom. The sixth century opens 
with Gregory the Great on the pontifical 
throne and Augustine of Canterbury estab- 
lishing Christianity in mother England. 
The seventh hears Boniface heralding the 
cross in the Fatherland; and the eighth, 
Anschar proclaiming glad tidings in Den- 
mark, and Methodius in Moravia. Then 
follow the centuries of night, when the love 
of pomp and strife for earthly honor crushed 
the common people to lift a self -perpetua- 
ting congregation of sacrilegious scoundrels 
to official place. Yet even this gloom was 



62 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

brightened by such lives as only the Holy 
Spirit knows how to light, and Thomas a 
Kempis, Anslem, Bernard of Clairvaux, 
Arnold of Brescia, Peter of Bruys, Peter 
Waldo, Saint Louis, Wyclif, Huss, Joan pf 
Arc, and Savonarola spake and proved that 
God spake through them. 

Runnymede had already given the An- 
glo-Saxon race old Magna Charta, when 
Luther rose to lead in that grand attack on 
error long intrenched, in which Zwingli, 
Melanchthon, Latimer, Knox, Calvin, Cran- 
mer, Tyndale, Coligny, and William the 
Silent bore such noble part. Meanwhile 
the Holy Spirit was leading others to 
those discoveries without which the work of 
God must go at halting pace. Gutenberg 
invents the printing press; the mariner's 
compass is perfected ; Columbus crosses the 
sea on his world-finding voyage ; Vasco da 
Gama rounds the Cape of Death and re- 
titles it Cape of Good Hope ; and Balboa, 
" silent upon a peak in Darien," first looks 
out on the Pacific's wide sea. Now the 
world is ready for swifter movements ; yet 
for a century or more the Spirit's preacher 
must be the sword. The Armada is en- 



FIRE. 63 

gulfed in an angry sea, Protestantism is 
established in sturdy Scotland, and the Neth- 
erlands secure their freedom ; Cromwell 
founds Britannia's empire of the sea, and the 
Pilgrims found freedom's empire this side 
the waves ; William of Orange makes his 
long and weary fight for the right of 
Protestantism to exist, against the allied 
hosts of Rome, with mighty France and 
Louis XIV at their head; the Revo- 
lution of 1688 gives William the Eng- 
lish throne, and Protestant control of the 
English language is assured for all the cen- 
turies ; Wolfe wins on the Plains of Abra- 
ham, and the arbitrament of the sword de- 
clares that America shall be Protestant, and 
not Catholic, as French domination would 
have meant; and in '76 liberty's bell sent 
freedom's song rolling out over all the 
world. 

Even while this glorious climax was be- 
ing fashioned new forces were marshaling. 
Wesley has already commenced his ever- 
widening work, and the Church which in a 
century becomes the largest communion 
in Protestantism is founded; Whitefield 
went flaming up and down England and the 



64 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

colonies ; Raikes has inaugurated the Sun- 
day school movement ; Eliot has given his 
life for the Indians ; the Danes have trans- 
lated the Bible into Tamil; Egede has 
preached Christ in Greenland ; and the Mo- 
ravians have begun their apostolic work in 
those most difficult fields where, to this day, 
few others have cared to go. 

Then by the Spirit came the era of mis- 
sionary organization, running like a holy 
fever through all the Churches, and the cen- 
tury of the Spirit's greatest triumphs was 
ushered in. Carey leads the march on India ; 
Morrison braves Confucianism in the Celes- 
tial Empire ; Judson gives his life for Bur- 
mah ; Calvert transforms Tonga and the 
Fiji ; Bingham and Thurston lay the foun- 
dation for the work now manifest in Hawaii ; 
Williams dies for Erromanga ; Heber lives 
for Calcutta ; Neesima studies for Japan ; 
Moffat toils for Kuruman ; Patteson dies for 
Melanesia; Chalmers explores Ranatongo 
and New Guinea for the cross ; Livingstone 
dies on his knees beside " Afric's sunny 
fountains ;" Comber pioneers for Jesus on 
the Congo ; Crowther, slave boy and bishop, 
gives his life for the dwellers by the Niger ; 



FIRE. 65 

Hannington falls with his work just begun ; 
and Damien becomes leprous at Molokai. 
All these and many more have lived and 
wrought and died, that we might enter into 
their labors and carry them on to perfection. 
And what sights are these that in the days 
of the youngest of us prove the Pentecost 
now rushing round the world ! Protestant 
churches, seminaries, and publishing houses 
lift their walls in Rome. Some friends of 
Paul have at last arrived in Spain. The off- 
spring of the Huguenots dare lift their heads 
in France. Steam and electricity have 
brought the uttermost parts of the earth to 
our very doors, and Christianity sets the 
fashion for all the world. The Ganges is 
no longer clogged with murdered infants. 
Widows are no longer immolated on the 
husband's funeral pile. Britain, America, 
Brazil, and Russia no longer hold a slave. 
Souls are being born of God in India faster 
than they can be trained and baptized. The 
New Hebrides have become the islands of 
God. Korea's king asks American bishop 
to send his land more missionaries. China's 
great viceroy calls upon America for more 
servants of the cross who go with healing 



66 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

medicines in their hands. China's queen 
begins to read the word of God. Japan 
parades whole divisions of her victorious 
army, that in marshaled ranks each soldier 
may receive a copy of the Testament of 
Jesus. Africa, from end to end, dispels 
her pagan darkness by the expulsive power 
of the Light of the world. Christian En- 
deavor leads in the organization of the army 
of the young, and nearly five million of this 
allied host are training for the fight. Chris- 
tian benevolence is taking wider reach. 
Christian stewardship is being recognized 
more and more. Christian citizenship is 
born, and soon will father a Christian states- 
manship that will right Armenia's wrongs, 
end the Eastern opium curse, crush the 
African slave trade, bury the liquor traffic, 
and open the way for the practicable social- 
ism of Jesus to rise with blessing on the 
earth. 

Verily the crisis of the ages is approach- 
ing. The triune God of Sinai, Calvary, 
and Pentecost seems nursing some great 
triumph for the kingdom of his righteous- 
ness. We are living in a time grand for 
its rushing, mighty manifestations of the 



FIRE. 67 

conquering power of God, and awful for 
the responsibility resting upon each who 
has named the name of Jesus. God is on 
his throne ; Christ is pleading at his side. 
The Holy Spirit waits. For what? For a 
more marvelous baptism of power than 
grace has ever yet poured out on the sup- 
plicating sons of earth. It is coming. The 
consecrated Church for which it tarries will 
soon be kneeling at a million altars. The 
soldiers who will follow no chieftain but the 
Captain of their salvation, who will forsake 
all, kindred, friends, lust, luxury, pride, 
party, passion, appetite, ease, and pleasure, 
shall soon lift hand and voice in holy sacra- 
mentum. It is coming. Like an avalanche 
descending it will grind and crush every 
monopoly of mammon and of sin. Like 
lightning it will smite every brothel, dance 
hall, grogshop, gambling den, and foul 
pleasure house. Like Jesus with his whip 
of cords it will cleanse the Churches of their 
trafficking in sinners for their names and 
purses. Like a flood it will cover the earth 
with a cleansing stream, sweeping away 
from the ready heart the last remains of 
sin , and fill the breasts of millions with the 



68 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

love that passeth knowledge. Like the sun 
it will rise to banish the night of sin and 
light the world with the resplendent favor 
of Jehovah. 

It is coming. The world is God's. He 
will have his own. It is coming. The 
kingdoms are Christ's. He will rule them. 
It is coming. The work belongeth unto the 
Holy Spirit, and he will not fail. It is com- 
ing, not the end of the world, not the 
millennium, but the baptism of God for the 
mighty work which the present generation 
must do for him. It is coming. Get your 
heart ready; get your church ready; get 
your city ready; get your nation ready. 
It is coming. It is coming. Will it come 
in you ? Will your head receive its tongue 
of fire? 



TEMPLES. 69 



III. 

TEMPLES. 

ONCE more we ask the photophone of 
revelation to picture us a scene of long 
ago. Nor is it some simple task we set it. 
Babylon had her hanging floral wonder. Old 
On, Egypt's city of the sun, had her famous 
temples, of which perchance the Avenue 
of the Pyramids was but the colonnade; 
Corinth rose in stately splendor by the sea ; 
Athens built her famed Acropolis on the 
hill of Mars ; Ephesus could go mad with 
pride while crying, ' ' Great is Diana of the 
Ephesians;" Rome might stud her seven 
hills with altars of superb magnificence ; 
Karnac, Luxor, Baalbec, and Thebes may 
stop us with amazement to-day when we 
with pick and shovel lift the dust of ages 
from the ruined yet glory-telling piles. 
Yet, though all these were grand, Jerusalem 
in the day of her glory had not to bend the 
knee to any. Even as Dagon, idol of Phi- 



70 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

listia, fell and broke its brazen neck when 
the golden ark that erstwhile shrined the 
manifested glory of Israel's God was entered 
in its temple, so, when on Abraham's moun- 
tain Solomon built the temple whose beauty 
filled the earth with wonder, every exist- 
ing shrine bowed its glory and its rites 
became obsolescent. It was not until war's 
rude hand and the base apostasy of the 
chosen people had left Jehovah's temple 
to neglected ruin that Nebuchadnezzar 
dared to raise his image on the plain of 
Dura, Ephesus build Diana, the Delphic 
oracles of Greece speak their poetic lies, or 
the Vestal virgins of Rome kindle fires to 
Jupiter and Mars. The task we set our 
vision then to-day is to reveal us Solomon 
in all his glory ; and if the vision appear 
quite imperfect it may be that the imper- 
fection arises from the fact that no mortal 
eye which now flashes in the light of day 
has ever viewed a scene one half so fair 
as that which attracted millions to the 
Judean hills. 

It is a day that marks the topmost reach 
of the wise man's ambition. The temple 
his father longed to build, but dare not, with 



TEMPLES. 71 

his war-polluted hands, now stands com- 
plete ; emblem of the power of peace to 
accomplish wonders, an early proof that 
" peace hath her victories no less renowned 
than war." Moriah is crowned with gold, 
jeweled with precious stones, and perfumed 
with the cedars of Lebanon. The temple 
of the Lord is built; the ark of God is 
coming to its magnificent home. This day 
Solomon is to dedicate to Almighty God the 
palace which Jewish wealth and Tyrian 
skill have reared in the name of Jehovah. 
More than seven years the thousands of 
workmen toiled, laying stone upon stone, 
joining cedar to cedar, and touching gold 
to gold ; yet, from the time the excavations 
were complete and the first stones of the 
foundations were put down until the 
crowning architraves of the beauteous 
structure found their place, not a sound of 
chisel or hammer or saw was heard. Now 
the task is done, and the stately pile lifts its 
many pinnacles to be kissed by morning 
sunbeams. 

The spacious porch is occupied by a 
great company of priests in flowing robes. 
The two immense pillars of brass — Boaz 



72 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

(strength is in him) and Jachin (he will 
establish) — lift their shining capitals forty 
feet or more in air. The sun shines 
through the many windows and dazzles the 
eyes as it makes mirrors of the immense 
plates of gold which overlay the walls and 
ceiling. There, raised upon the backs of 
twelve huge oxen of brass, is the brazen 
sea, whose capacious basin will not over- 
flow though five hundred water barrels 
pour their fullness in it. Yonder gleams 
the Holy of Holies, radiant with precious 
metals and stones ; ten golden candlesticks 
add their splendor; the two strangely fash- 
ioned cherubim spread their glorious wings 
over the sacred spot where the ark is soon 
to rest, and the richly embroidered curtains 
wave in the breezes of the morning air. 

Now a blast of trumpets, long, sounding 
on the air, announces that the ceremonies 
are to begin. In answer to the summons 
of the king millions have gathered to 
watch while priestly strength bears the 
precious ark from Zion to Moriah. Count- 
less numbers of these guard the lamb or ox 
which will this day be their offering to the 
Most High ; while from the valley yonder 



TEMPLES. 73 

rises the bleating of the one hundred and 
twenty thousand sheep and the bellowing 
of the two and twenty thousand oxen which 
as night comes will constitute the nation's 
offering to the God of nations. But the great 
procession has swept down from Zion's hill 
and now climbs the steep slopes of Abra- 
ham's altar. Great companies of harpers, 
chorus on chorus of priestly singers, band 
on band of cymbal and timbrel players 
precede the king, who for the day turns 
his back on the forty thousand horses in 
the royal stables and walks with enthu- 
siastic step before the priest-borne ark. 

The brazen pillars are reached. The 
ark is on the ground where Father Abra- 
ham prayed to the God who spared his son. 
But before those priests dare pass those 
portals and bear the sacred ark within its 
resplendent shrine blood, blood must flow. 
Blood has for three thousand years rang its 
awful anthem in this people's ears. Blood 
must greet the rising sun, and blood must 
wave it a red good-night ; blood must lift 
the tribute of health, and blood must flow 
in petition to stay disease ; blood must flow 
to bind great bargains, and blood must 



74 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

flood the altars when armies return from 
slaughter ; blood must wrap its horrid band 
about the hands of those just joined in 
marriage, and blood must justly flow if 
that holy compact be violated by sin ; blood 
must flow when the tiny infant is offered to 
the Lord, and blood must flow when the 
aged saint is carried to his tomb; blood, 
blood, blood has flowed like Jordan's 
stream through all these centuries, yet all 
its flow has never covered over the host of 
Israel's sins. Now — for these Jews know no 
better way, and are living up to the light 
they have, more anxious, no doubt> than 
are we, their critics, to render unto God what 
they know to be his due — now blood must 
flood the newly erected altars before king 
or high priest dare pass with the ark within 
the most holy place. 

The priests man their altars, and the peo- 
ple press about them with their offerings. 
The king slays his sacrifice, and all through 
the morning the bloody task goes on, until 
when the people halt in their offering the 
sacred historian recoils from the duty set 
him of numbering, and can only write down 
for us that the sacrifices by the people of 



TEMPLES. 75 

sheep and of oxen " could not be told or 
numbered for multitude/' At last the sac- 
rificial service is done. The trumpets 
sound again. Every eye is fixed upon the 
king as he stands beside the ark. The 
voices of the singers break the stillness with 
the hallelujahs of David. The harps re- 
sound ; the cymbals clash ; the timbrels 
tinkle ; the sackbuts send their shrill music 
over the hills ; the dulcimers wail out their 
strangely plaintive tones; the lutes make 
merry as their dozen strings give forth their 
melodies. Then all unite in a grand sym- 
phony of praise as the priests at the king's 
command lift up the ark, march up the steps, 
cross the porch, and pass within the massive 
doors whose very hinges are formed of gold. 
Then a hush of awed expectancy masters the 
assembly. In the old tabernacle of the 
wilderness the glory of the Lord rested on 
that ark. Would God restore that gracious 
favor now? The dulcimers continue their 
low pleading music; it soothes, because it 
intones the heart cry of the people. But 
look ! The king returns, the priests hasten 
out. God has come ! His glory, as a cloud, 
cannot be contained by a twenty-foot holy 



76 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

place. It overleaps such small-expecting 
boundaries ; it fills the temple ; it fills the 
court of the people; it drives forth king 
and priest, and as it overshadows Moriah 
with its cloudy fullness, mixes priests a;id 
king with common people, all, both high and 
low, bend in awe before this manifested 
presence of Him who is no respecter of per- 
sons. 

Thus before the wise man prayed, or the 
nation's offering was consumed at eventide 
by fire sent from heaven, God, ready to own 
every attempt to serve him, sent the majesty 
of his glory to fill the temple built by men, 
there to abide until sin had so polluted the 
very priests who sacrificed at its altars that 
he must withdraw his glory and leave them 
rush on to ruin and the murder of Him who 
came to save. Through centuries of vic- 
tories and defeats, of joys and woes, of 
Hezekiahs and Uzziahs, that glory filled 
the holy place, and the most magnificent 
temple earth ever knew shrined the Shekinah 
of the Most High. No wonder this all-per- 
vading glory sent Solomon to his knees in 
mighty prayer, or that this token of the 
Lord's high favor made him so rejoice that 



TEMPLES. 77 

the millions of Judea could not sing sweet 
enough to intone the gladness of his heart. 
No wonder that, rising from his knees, he 
must exclaim that by this manifested glory 
1 ' all the people of the earth would know that 
the Lord is God, and that there is none else/' 
But that glory has long since departed 
from Moriah's top. That wise man has 
played the fool before our eyes, and from 
building a temple to Jehovah turned to build- 
ing shrines for idols while lust ate up his 
life. Of that temple not one stone remains 
upon another, and the race that reared it 
are the outcasts of the world. Still the fact 
remains, there was a temple. Its magnifi- 
cence was the glory of Solomon's reign, and 
to that temple God sent the cloud of his 
glory. To Solomon was provided this sub- 
lime expression of his God's good pleasure. 
Now, can it be that God has ' ' provided some 
better thing for us " than came to this wisest 
of men to crown this most magnificent of 
buildings? God provided no Christ for the 
mortal eye of Moses to behold, but our eyes 
have seen him, and our hearts do know him. 
God came not in, but merely sent, fire to 
Elijah, next to the greatest of the prophets; 



78 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

yet he has come to us in fire, and by it con- 
sumed our sins. God gave to Solomon this 
matchless temple filled with the glory of his 
presence. Can his wisdom devise a way by 
which his love can provide some better 
thing for us than the glory-shrining temple 
which called people from the ends of the 
earth to worship or wonder at its altars? 
Can God in these later times outdo the 
splendor of that glorious age? Can he 
build temples more marvelous than that 
which was Judea's pride? Let us ask him, 
and study well the answer that he sends. 

It is a thousand years since Solomon was 
carried to his tomb. Out from the Damas- 
cus gate of the holy city a little band of 
travelers are emerging. A few Roman sol- 
diers and a dozen or more angry Jews attend 
the leader of the party. Looking upon this 
leader we find there is no beauty or come- 
liness about him. A little, short, middle- 
aged man of halting step, blurred sight, 
and disagreeable though learned speech, is 
wrapped round with robes which proclaim 
him a Pharisee of the Pharisees. It is a far 
cry and a drear contrast from the stately 
sublimity of Solomon's temple to this poor 



TEMPLES. 79 

specimen of the animal, man. This rav- 
ing Jewish fanatic, bent on the destruction 
of the unoffending, is making more noise 
with his pharisaical lips than all Solomon's 
artisans made in erecting the temple. 
There not a curse was heard, so sacred felt 
every man to be the task at which he 
worked; but this fellow is breathing out 
cursings as though the earth could only be 
purified by his sulphurous utterances. As 
they journey they think of no sacrifice save 
the poor innocents toward whom they 
hurry, and they cheer themselves by 
1 ' breathing out threatenings and slaughter 
against the disciples of the Lord." Sud- 
denly at noonday there shines upon them 
a light from heaven, more brilliant than 
the brightness of the sun. It envelops the 
form of the Pharisee, and, blinded by its 
glory, yet beholding the God who sent it, 
the blasphemous persecutor of the early 
Church falls to the ground. His tongue 
turns from hell and enters heaven. His 
soul bows down before this very Jesus 
whose disciples have aroused his ire, and in 
anguish of heart Saul cries out, ' ' Who art 
thou, Lord?" The answer comes: 



80 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

1 i I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But 
rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have 
appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make 
thee a minister and a witness both of these 
things which thou hast seen, and of those 
things in the which I will appear unto thee." 

What does it mean? Paul cannot tell 
you now, for he is blind, and they lead him 
by the hand within the city walls. For 
days the darkness lasts, while he communes 
with God ; then old Ananias comes and lays 
his fatherly hands upon the blind man, and 
i ' immediately there fell from his eyes as it 
had been scales,' ' and he who was a Pharisee 
is filled with the Holy Ghost. What glori- 
ous use the Spirit hastens to make of that 
well-trained intellect! What mighty con- 
cepts of holy things are crowded upon his 
thought ! What possibilities for the sons of 
God are now foreshadowed ! What certain- 
ties of grace made known ! As this new- 
found glory floods his soul and energizes 
his wonderful mind Paul grasps a mighty 
secret, and, aflame with its first ever- 
blessed inspiration, he proclaims the truth 
just grasped. 

I AM A TEMPLE. Not merely God's 



TEMPLES. 81 

glory, but his very Spirit dwells in me! 
God never dwelt in the temple of my 
fathers, for he dwelleth not in temples 
made with hands. His glory but rested 
there awhile, but now I am become a temple 
of the living God. Faints my spirit at such 
honor? Then let it lift itself to the heavens 
and learn the purpose of the Father. The 
temple which for centuries glorified Jeru- 
salem bespoke the wealth of Israel's mighty 
king and the skill of Tyre's greatest archi- 
tect ; but this body, unsightly though it be 
compared with many of my brothers, be- 
speaks the wealth of wisdom possessed by 
that mighty Architect of the heavens who 
formed it for his glory. The stones of that 
massive pile were powerless to help or save ; 
how much more glorious the several parts 
of this temple God has fashioned of my 
clay ! Not always can I remain on Moriah's 
heights to worship there; therefore these 
feet shall bear the temple of which they are 
a part the round world over, that wherever 
I may be I can retire within the temple of 
my selfhood and worship my Creator; 
therefore ' ' I have learned in whatsoever 
state I am therewith to be content," know- 



82 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

ing that wherever I am there God abides 
within me. These hands can minister to 
the cries of need about me ; these eyes can 
look soul - touching love into burdened 
hearts ; these lips can speak to the careless, 
sing for the cheerless, pray for the friend- 
less, and voice the oracles of the Most 
High to my fellows. The capstone of the 
temple was but a block of stone ; the cap- 
stone of this, my living temple, is a mind ; 
a mind such as was in Christ my Saviour ; 
a mind that is the holy of holies, within 
which the secrets of the Throne are told 
me ; a mind which stays my life on Christ, 
which proves my sonship of the Creator by 
its stupendous concepts, and which opens 
the vista of eternity to my enraptured gaze 
by showing me the infinite possibilities of 
a world whose inhabitants know no king 
but Jesus. 

The glory of the templet holy of holies 
was its ark, containing the stones on which 
God's finger wrote ; the glory of this temple 
of my body is the soul it shrines ; the soul 
which bears the image of the Deity ; the soul 
that lives because it is the breath of God 
and can never die ; the soul that, fed by a 



TEMPLES. 83 

divine ambition, never rests content until 
within it is poured all the fullness of God. 
Ark of Israel, thou art lost, but my soul can 
now be found with God! Thy guardian 
cherubim could not protect thee from vandal 
hands, but multitudes of ministering spirits 
guard my soul and will finally bear it safe 
to realms ineffable. Beside thee was the 
manna, like that on which our fathers 
fed ; but to my soul comes the bread from 
heaven, which satisfies my hungerings for 
evermore. Thou boasted Aaron's bud- 
ding rod, my boast it is to bear daily such 
fruit of heaven that its life shall be mani- 
fest on earth. 

O temple of cedar, of stone, and of gold, 
how worthless art thou compared with this 
temple God hath fashioned of my flesh! 
Speak to me not of thy great cost. Millions 
of Judean wealth reared thy splendor ; but 
count thy cost to the highest figure, God's 
living temple, which temple I am, cost in- 
finitely more. I am a temple, yet not my 
own. God bought me with a price. Think 
of it ! God, him who formed the heavens and 
stretched the worlds and suns which form 
the universe in an empty place ; God, who 



84 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

is from everlasting to everlasting, whose 
glory fills the heavens, whose mercy 
brightens all history's pages, whose truth 
gives liberty to every heart that learns it, 
whose love overmasters hate, dethrones 
jealousy, and knows naught of prejudice; 
this God has purchased me, that in me he 
might dwell. Well may you ask, If God be 
the purchaser, what was the price? What 
price would God give for living temples ! O 
Solomon, thy temple's cost is a bauble of 
meanest measure compared to the price God 
paid for me. The gold in all earth's moun- 
tains, the precious stones from her many cav- 
erns, the silver in her thousand mines, the 
cedars and perfumed woods from her million 
forests, the cattle upon her trillion hills, the 
fruit of her multitudinous valleys, the fac- 
tories that multiply her increasing wealth, 
the ships that sail her many seas, the palaces 
that grace her noble cities, all these and 
more could not purchase me. The price God 
paid for me was the life of his only begot- 
ten Son. He wanted living temples ; to gain 
them he gave of his own life, and thus by 
' ' the blood that speaketh better things 
than that of Abel's " am I, who am of God's 



TEMPLES. 85 

building, become the temple of God, and the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in me. 

Ah, Solomon, thy wisdom was great, but 
it was earthly. Its loftiest ideal was never 
higher than the first Adam and the delights 
of Eden. Paul outshines thee as the sun 
outshines the meteor which darts athwart 
the heavens and is seen no more. His wis- 
dom is lasting, for it is heavenly. Its ideal 
transcends time, casts off the flesh, hurls 
worlds to oblivion, and soars aloft to the 
very throne of the Triune, nor rests content 
until Jehovah speaks, proclaiming, ' ' Ye shall 
be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord." 

Verily, God hath provided us better things 
than were granted to the greatest of other 
days. The secret disclosed to Paul was not 
for him alone, but for you and me as well. 
No radiant glory has blinded our fleshly 
eyes, but the glories which in our Saviour 
shine have attracted our spirits from earthly 
scenes and fixed them on the Crucified. 
The Son of God has drawn us with cords of 
love and bound us in sincere devotion to 
his ennobling work. While we were breath- 
ing out threatenings against right living and 
slaughtering our own and our neighbors 



86 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

character God lifted the cross of Christ his 
Son before ns ; the wondrous magnetism of 
its love drew us, and we followed on, charmed 
to confess in our inmost soul that that cross 
was the measure of our worth to God. Our 
spiritual vision has beheld the shining Sun 
of righteousness. From out its glory we 
have heard the gracious invitation, " Come 
unto me." With joy our wearied souls 
obeyed, and our hearts were opened to him. 
Christ has come in and supped with us, the 
feast has not yet ended ; but lo, we find the 
food is not that of the flesh, but the shew- 
bread of the temple. Our soul is not the 
banquet hall of a palace, but the holy of 
holies of a sanctuary. God has dedicated 
us to his service. The enlarging hope with 
which he fills our minds makes the valley of 
the shadow of death to break forth before us 
into gladness. The cloud envelops us in 
numberless mercies. The presence within 
makes our lives to shine, and our fellow-men, 
beholding these strivings to do good in the 
name of Jesus, glorify our Father who is in 
heaven. The Shekinah dwelling in us is 
God's own Spirit come to witness with ours 
that we are the sons of God ; and henceforth 



TEMPLES. 87 

throughout our life we are to be the temples 
through which God shall let his glory shine, 
from whence his truth shall be proclaimed, 
and in whom the victorious life of the sin- 
less Christ shall be continued in the world. 
Thus has God provided "better things" 
for us than cheered the hearts of the fathers. 
Christ came; earth had no dwelling place 
to give him ; even the temple was foul with 
the sin of centuries, and when he would 
have cleansed it its priests slew him on 
the cursed tree ; the foxes had their holes, 
the birds of the air their nests, but the 
Eternal Word, who was made flesh and 
dwelt among us, had not where to lay his 
head. God would not suffer such infamy 
to continue. Murder on, ye priests; pride 
goeth before destruction, and a haughty 
spirit before a fall; destruction and ruin 
shall overtake you and the tumbling stones 
of falling temple shall bury you in dis- 
grace ; yet before the temple falls God will 
prove that his arm has not lost its strength 
nor his hand been shortened, that it cannot 
work his pleasure in the world. Christ 
needed not of stones to create sons unto 
Abraham, for the Father would of flesh 



88 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

build temples for his Son's indwelling. 
The Spirit descends, Pentecost transforms 
the race and ennobles the earth. Tried so 
as by fire, the dross consumed, temple on 
temple rises in spiritual splendor over the 
globe, until the time draws near when it 
" shall be filled with the knowledge of the 
glory of the Lord as the waters cover the 
sea." 

Awake, ye who profess to yield obedience 
unto God. Let Paul startle you as he did 
the Corinthians from the lethargy of the 
ease that is devilish. "What! know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the 
Holy Ghost which is in you? " That Christ 
abides in your hearts by love ; that ye are 
* ' stewards of the mysteries of God ? " How 
then ought you to live ? ' ' For the temple of 
God is holy. ... If any man defile the temple 
of God, him shall God destroy." Not all 
Solomon's learning saved him from his sin. 
Not all the gold of the temple's thrice- 
reared splendor saved it from destruction. 
So naught can save that soul or Church 
which defiles the work God's Spirit performs 
in the lives of men ; but work with that 
Spirit and you enter into the triumphs of 



TEMPLES. 89 

Jehovah, become joint heirs in the conquests 
of Immanuel. 

Think of what God has accomplished by 
these living temples. The Baptist was the 
last prophet of the temple ; his message was 
unheard at Jerusalem, though thousands 
heard him by the Jordan, and he de- 
creased as his Master increased. Peter 
became a living temple, preached with the 
unction of the Holy One resting upon him- 
self and hearers, and the increase of his 
Master's kingdom worked the increase of 
his own. Daniel could close the mouths of 
lions, tell the visions of troubled sleep, and 
exercise the prerogative of kings ; but where 
is the result of all his well- wrought labor? 
Largely gone with the temple for whose rites 
he so bravely stood. Paul becomes a living 
temple, he endures the tribulations of the 
blest, his pen writes out the thought of 
God, his tongue proclaims the unsearchable 
riches of his grace, his life proves the uplift 
of the spiritual force within, and his work 
has increased as the centuries round up 
their millenniums, until to-day, next to his 
Master, Paul is the greatest ruler of the 
intellects of men. Elijah nobly served the 



90 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

temple economy and wrought his marvels, 
but his mighty wonders did not save Israel 
from oblivion nor Judah from beggarly 
captivity. Luther became a living temple, 
sounded his proclamation of the truth the 
oracle within had taught him ; Rome was 
shaken to her foundations, the progressive 
races of the earth cast off her blighting 
thrall, and the work of the monk of Witten- 
berg gains new triumphs each time this 
earthly footstool of Jehovah rounds its orbit 
in the heavens. 

Read again the history of the old and the 
new times of God in the light of this soul- 
stirring truth, and note the vast increase of 
power which attends the labor of these liv- 
ing temples. Nor is it strange that it 
vshould be so. Sinai thundered above the 
heads of men, Pentecost spake within men 
by tongues of fire ; Carmel destroyed, the 
spirit of the tongues built up ; Eden's ser- 
pent hissed its curse in every ear, Golgotha's 
Sacrifice startled the world with the tran- 
scendent love which pleaded pardon even 
for those who nailed him to the cross. By 
as much as Calvary's cross is more love- 
revealing than Eden's flaming sword are 



TEMPLES. 91 

the times in which we live more glorious 
and blessed than the days when the fathers 
turned their faith toward these better 
things they prayed might come ; and in 
these holy times we are called to be the holy 
temples of the Lord. We are to use the 
tongue of fire to proclaim to all the world, 
Christendom and heathendom, that God 
t ' hath in these last days spoken unto us by 
his Son," and by that love which proved 
itself on Calvary called us to dedicate our- 
selves to his redeeming work by a consecra- 
tion that will be as continuous as the breath 
by which we live. 

Christian, does God dwell in you? Do 
you feel this moment that you are a temple 
in which the Holy Ghost doth dwell? If 
not then it is time for you to halt — time for 
you to put your soul on trial, thankful that 
it can be done this side the judgment — and 
at the bar of God's truth ask yourself if you 
possess aught that entitles you to the great 
name, " Christian." It was that you should 
no longer be the world's man, or selfs man, 
or Satan's man, that the first Better Thing 
came into the wxxrld and offered himself to 
you, that possessed of him you might be 



92 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

heaven's man in the slums, Christ's man in 
the markets, and God's man in the councils 
of the nations. You are not your own. 
You have been bought with a price, and 
He who owns you commands — not wishes, 
pleads, prays, or coaxes, but commands — 
that you live so as to honor and magnify 
his ownership. That command must be 
obeyed, or you are none of his. This is a 
hard saying to a race that is in love with 
sanctimonious self, but escape from it there 
is none if the word of God be true. The 
Christian has no other business in the world 
than to exemplify by his holy living the 
message which Christ proclaimed concern- 
ing the possibilities and grandeur of the 
life that now is. Christ was the kind of a 
man God commands each of us to be. He 
has set no lower standard ; we are to attain 
the nobility u of a perfect man, unto the 
measure of the fullness of Christ," or we 
fail miserably of measuring up to the oppor- 
tunity given us of God for ourselves, for 
men about us, and for him. The world 
hungers after righteousness. God longs to 
vsatisfy that hunger. He would feed the 
world by our holy living. Christ brought 



TEMPLES. 93 

righteousness into the world, Paul affirms 
that we are ' ' made the righteousness of 
God in him," and are thus fitted to minister 
to the groaning need of the world. As 
another has wisely said : l ' Our business on 
earth, among men, is to be the righteous- 
ness of God embodied, with hearts, brains, 
hands, tongue, and feet. To this end are 
we born into the world," and if we perform 
not the task for which God gave us being 
it were better that a mother had never 
agonized for our birth. 

How can this fullness of Christ be ob- 
tained ? By simple, unswerving, unquestion- 
ing obedience through the continual sacrifice 
of our wills, pleasures, ambitions, and pur- 
poses to the will of God, that through us the 
extension and completion of the work which 
brought Christ to earth may be achieved. 
As we are not our own, so we are not to live 
or walk alone. Christ is to dwell in us con- 
tinually, and thus go with us always, even 
should duty call us to the end — in distance 
or time — of the world. It was that we might 
always feel this presence with us that the 
second better thing came in fulfillment of 

the Saviour's promise, that the Spirit's con- 

7 



94 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

stant witness and daily prompting should 
nerve us to high endeavor. Yet more; 
even as God by the tongue of fire bore wit- 
ness that we were his children, so we are by 
the tongue of fire to bear witness to the 
world that Christ is God to the glory of God 
the Father. The same better thing which 
is our witness of the Father's favor is our 
equipment to do the Father's work. With 
this equipment — a tongue, man's one great 
faculty for pressing himself close to the heart 
of his fellows — we are to continue the labors 
of God's workmen who have passed beyond. 
Thus equipped we are to stand before kings 
and plead his cause, summon nations to obey 
his commandments, end war by submission 
to the Prince of Peace, still mobs by the name 
of Jesus, silence the learned by appeal to the 
law and to the testimony, ennoble labor by 
the teachings of the Carpenter of Nazareth, 
teach capital the Sermon on the Mount, ex- 
pel vice by the entrance of purity, crush 
hatred by the weight of a Christlike love, 
awake the indifferent by unveiling the judg- 
ment, arouse the lethargic by visions of Him 
who cometh on the clouds of heaven, and 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to 



TEMPLES. 95 

all who are bound by sickness, sin, or need. 
This is the work of the sons of God. This 
is the work which we must do, or our gen- 
eration shall rise against us at the judgment 
in righteous condemnation. 

How can we do this work ? Only by being 
indwelt by Christ and filled with the Holy 
Spirit. In other words, we can only do the 
w r ork God has appointed to us, when we have 
realized in our lives the third better thing 
which he has made possible to us who live 
to-day. We must be temples. Even as 
they who mourn are not satisfied until they 
bear their dead to the altars of our churches 
for the rite of Christian funeral, because of 
the hallowed interests centered there ; so we 
must live, that those in need or sin shall 
come with equal longing to our hearts, 
assured of kindly care and godly admoni- 
tion. The masses may not come to temples 
made of brick and marble, but they will 
gladly welcome living temples who go to 
them with hand ready to help lift their bur- 
den, and sufficient brotherly interest to eat 
at their tables. 

There is no church of wood or brick or 
stone in all this land, no matter how poor 



96 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

or costly, that contains the presence of 
the Christ. Pentecosts may bless the thou- 
sand altars of our churches, but Pentecost 
tarries not at those altars. Christ dwells in 
hearts of flesh, made fit for such indwelling 
by miracles of grace. Pentecost, if it walks 
the earth at all, must walk upon the feet of 
those who are ' ' shod with the preparation 
of the Gospel of peace." If you are Christ's, 
you must be his temple. If your spirit is 
cheered this day by the witness of the Spirit 
of God that you are a child of the king, then 
that Shekinah makes of your soul an holy of 
holies, from which you are daily to draw 
the veil, that all the unpentecosted sons of 
men may see the glory that is given thee. 
The first and second Better Things, whose 
contemplation has so thrilled your hearts, 
cannot be yours unless by your obedience 
to them you are fashioned into a temple for 
their use. You must be a temple of God, 
or the altars of your heart remain unconse- 
crated to him. You cannot be a temple of 
God and continue in sin, for " what agree- 
ment hath the temple of God with idols ?" 
The idol of self counts millions of its devo- 
tees to-day. Are you among them? If in 



TEMPLES. 97 

you self is not dethroned Christ is not en- 
throned. Where Christ is not enthroned 
there he has no temple. If from you self 
is not cast out the Holy Ghost has not en- 
tered in : Be careful ; your life without the 
Holy Ghost may end as Herod's unaccepted 
temple did. Face then once more the ques- 
tions: Does Christ dwell in you? Is the 
Holy Spirit now witnessing within? Are 
you a temple of God? If with an undoubt- 
ing heart you cannot answer, "Yes," then to 
your knees, and rise not until ' * ye also are 
builded for an habitation of God through 
the Spirit." 



98 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 



IV. 

THE WORK OF THE SONS OF GOD. 

POSSESSING Christ, filled with the 
Spirit, become temples of God, we 
may press on in our quest of the work 
which the sons of God must perform if the 
labor of the faithful of the past is to be 
made perfect. Let us understand our 
glorious privilege. We are intrusted with 
the past that we may advance toward 
perfection the work of God which in the 
past was begun by our fathers, and to 
which they dedicated their lives; a work 
which, when we have added our utmost 
labor, shall still need the consecrated 
endeavor of our children and children's 
children to bring it unto that perfection 
that shall greet the smile of the descending 
Christ. 

We are to bring to perfection the labors 
of the dead, and when we have passed 
beyond our children shall perform a like 
labor for us. This seems the better meaning 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 99 

gained from these words of Paul. Many 
expositors treat the passage as though it 
read, lt God having provided some better 
thing for us, that they without Christ 
should not be made perfect/' But Paul 
wrote no such unnecessary statement. 
Without Christ neither they nor we may 
attain the heights of perfect achievement 
and blessedness. Paul here fathomed the 
secret of the responsibility resting upon each 
succeeding present to advance the best of 
the age and ages past. The success of 
every generation's labor is bound up in the 
consummation of the whole work of God 
on which all the generations are employed. 
No generation liveth unto itself. Each 
generation has some white-crowned veterans 
long past their threescore years and ten 
that link their generation with one nearly a 
century buried ; and there run beside them, 
set upon their knee, and eagerly listen to 
an old man's tales, the wee tots that shall 
bind the present with a century yet unborn. 
Such intermingling of babe with veteran is 
not a novelty of our age, but began when 
Methuselah trotted on the knee of Adam, 
and centuries after, in the wondering ears of 



tOO BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Shem, Ham, and Japheth, told how that first 
man looked. Thus the generations and the 
centuries are bound together, and bound 
that the work of God may never halt, and 
that the aspirations and ambitions of ' one 
age shall be perfectly known to the chil- 
dren of the next. 

Certainly those expositors are right who 
hold that the galaxy of great ones mar- 
shaled in this inspiring chapter needed for 
their perfection the redemption of Jesus 
Christ. They also are right who hold that 
these great ones without the benefits which 
the whole race has derived from the Chris- 
tian Church could not be made perfect in 
glory ; but this leads to just the point we are 
now emphasizing, that the faith-ivX labor of 
succeeding generations is essential to the per- 
fecting of their work and life. They waited, 
toiled, prayed, for the redemption of Jesus 
Christ; they prepared the way for that 
larger expectation of heavenly life on earth 
in which the Christian Church was founded, 
but they died ere either had come. How 
shall their life work be rounded out, per- 
fected? Only by succeeding generations 
accepting and heralding that redemption 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 101 

when provided, and by the benefits of that 
redemption rear a Church that would do for 
the race all and more than the old Jewish 
saints prayed for and prophesied would be 
done by coming sons of God. The saints 
of the olden time were not to be made 
perfect by Christ, nor by the Church of 
Christ, but by us — we of the first and the 
present and the last century yet to come — 
who, having accepted the redemption pro- 
vided us in Jesus Christ, work through the 
Christian Church to make it to and for the 
race what God meant it to be when from 
before the foundation of the world its mis- 
sion shaped itself in the divine thought. 

The chapter of which the verse we are 
studying is the glorious climax records the 
triumphs of the servants of Jehovah ; names 
many, yet leaves more unnamed, of that 
mighty host who with Moses choose "rather 
to suffer affliction with the people of God, 
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a 
season/ ' And though they were many times 
destitute, and tormented, and wandered 
about through desert and mountain, clad 
only in goatskins and sheepskins, with no 
homes save dens and caves of the earth, 



102 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

yet as good soldiers of Him who was to 
come, and for the hope that was set before 
them, they endured trials of mockery, bared 
their bodies for cruel scourgings, recanted 
not though bound and imprisoned, halted 
not though their comrades sank beneath 
the piling stones that pounded out their life, 
shrank not though their brothers were sawn 
asunder before their eyes and their dear 
ones slain by the sword ; though thus sorely 
tempted to forsake the work of God they 
withstood the torture, held fast to God, and 
escaping the edge of the sword out of weak- 
ness were made strong, and stopping the 
mouths of lions, quenching the violence of 
fire, they waxed valiant in fight, so that 
turning to flight the armies of the aliens 
they obtained promises of even better 
things, and subduing kingdoms, they lived 
on to work righteousness in the world. It 
is this God-inspired work of subduing king- 
doms and working righteousness, which 
they died before bringing to perfection, that 
we are to complete for them. We have 
entered into their labors, and with the bet- 
ter things provided us which they lived too 
early in time to see, we must hasten the 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 103 

glad time when the kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdoms of our God and 
of his Christ, and righteousness prevail from 
the river unto the ends of the earth. 

Perhaps we will grasp more clearly this 
idea of the dependence of one generation 
upon those succeeding for the perfecting of 
its work if we seek an illustration in our 
own national history. To Washington, 
Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and their co- 
patriots we justly ascribe great honor for 
their splendid achievement in securing the 
independence, constitutional government, 
and foreign recognition of our nation. But 
though the semen wrought gloriously, the 
work to which they gave their lives was far 
from perfect when death claimed them. 
Had Madison and Monroe and the men of 
1 8 12 not opened their veins to give forth 
the Revolutionary blood that filled them 
the Declaration of Independence would 
have become waste paper while some who 
signed it yet lived. Had the aspirations 
and machinations of those who made pos- 
sible the Southern Confederacy not been 
demolished by the persistency and daring 
of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, Han- 



104 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

cock, Thomas, Hooker, Howard, and the 
thousands clad in blue, supported by the 
statesmanship of Seward, Sumner, Stanton, 
Wilson, and all those who bowed to the 
will and inspiration of that greatest Ameri- 
can — God's gift to us in our hour of need — 
Abraham Lincoln, the republic made pos- 
sible by Wolfe's victory at Quebec, founded 
by Washington and his compeers, and main- 
tained by Madison amid the defeats of the 
second war, would have been rent and torn 
past all hope of mending, and the work for 
which the heroes of '76 and 18 12 gave their 
lives would have had no longer a possibility 
of attaining perfection. Is there not also 
a work for us to do ? What profit the ter- 
rible sacrifices of '61-65 if Northern lust 
for federal office, Southern nullification of 
constitutional privileges, and national re- 
fusal to educate into fitness for citizenship 
those who by national enactment were with 
such shameful speed rushed forward to suf- 
frage is to continue ? The work for which 
in reality a million freemen gave their 
lives, Grant toiled, Sherman marched, Sum- 
ner suffered, Seward labored, and Lincoln 
died — the elevation of the Negro race — waits 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 105 

upon the consecration of the present and 
the coming generation for its perfection. 
The Negro is no longer a slave. He is 
worse. He is the plaything of national 
parties. Hounded by one, puppetized by 
the other, he becomes the innocent cause 
of machine-constructed sectional prejudice. 
Thus buffeted he waits amid suffering, 
poverty, contumely, and ignorance the time 
when, by the men who rule, his children 
shall be given opportunity for education, in- 
dustrial, professional, and ethical, and he 
himself, from Boston to Galveston, from 
Charleston to Seattle, treated as the man the 
law declares him to be. Yet more ; if the 
nation saved unbroken by the peace of Ap- 
pomattox is to prove worth the saving, by 
attaining in some measure the perfection 
proved possible by the labors of such as 
Washington, Hancock, Franklin, Jefferson, 
Madison, Webster, Clay, Marshall, Story, 
and Lincoln, if these and they who labored 
with them are to see the perfection of their 
work in a republic that for civil righteous- 
ness and national integrity shall be the 
model for all the nations, then surely there 
must soon arise that heroic host which will 



106 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

chase the seat purchasers from the Senate, 
the stock gamblers from the House, bosses 
from the control of States, their dum- 
mies from gubernatorial chairs, monopoly- 
directed Legislatures from their halls, gov- 
ernment-by-injunction judges from their 
benches, primaries and delegate-electing 
caucuses from the saloons, heelers from the 
polls and healers — honest but indifferent 
citizens — to them, and usher in the time 
when citizenship shall be exercised in the 
fear of God and the responsibility of office 
be expressed in weightier deeds than Fourth 
of July addresses. 

No great man's work is rounded out as he 
would have it when death calls him away. 
The task to which years have been given is 
left unfinished. Plans just formed are left 
to the skill of others for execution. Com- 
pletion of life's labor may be near, but there 
still remain some niches unadorned. Some 
pillar lacks its capital, some dome waits its 
crown when the life passes on. But if the 
soul has been laboring together with God 
the work goes on, for it is not man's, but 
God's ; and laboring together with God we 
enter into the fellowship of labor with all 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 107 

God's workmen of the past and stretch forth 
a brother's hand to his workmen of the 
future . Milan Cathedral is a many-pinnacled 
illustration of the co-laboring of the centuries. 
Men of one century draw the plans, men of 
another century excavate and lay the foun- 
dations, men of another rear the walls, but 
men of still another century must climb the 
walls and on the dizzy heights set the cor- 
nices and lift the pinnacles that crown the 
structure nobly finished, and the stately pile 
that is the consummation binds all this labor 
in one inspiring whole. So, as we labor 
with God the handiwork of the workmen 
of all the centuries is bound in one grand 
work of God whose consummation waits for 
the crowning touch of the last son of God 
placed as the resurrection trumpets sound ; 
and the glory of that work is enhanced or 
marred, its consummation hastened or re- 
tarded according as each generation works 
or fails to work up to the full measure of the 
opportunities and talents given it of God. 

The life, the ambitions, and the possibil- 
ities of all the centuries enter into each, for 
the life of each is God, and each works on 
the plan ordained of God. Some may seem 



108 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

cold, some hot, but cold and hot are alike 
needed for the perfection of the whole. 
Just as the breeze that sweeps clear and 
biting about the poles constantly changes 
place with the hot pestilential air that 
hangs heavy in the equatorial regions, pro- 
ducing thus those fresh-tempered atmos- 
pheres which are essential to life in all the 
zones, so do the centuries minister to each 
other and to the progress of the full work of 
God. There would be no temperate were 
there no arctic and torrid zones; so there 
would be no mighty achieving centuries 
were there not the foul refuse of lethargic 
centuries to be destroyed, and the frigid in- 
difference concerning the future to contend 
against. God rules all, and those who work 
with God enter into the rule of all. 

Coming closer we may seek knowledge of 
the particular work God has committed to 
man which the past has begun and our en- 
deavor must advance or perfect. Who are 
the toilers that wait on our labors for the 
shaping of their crown? Let us pursue 
our study under three divisions. 

First. Nature waits to be perfected by the 
skillful labor of the offspring of Adam. The 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 109 

glory of nature is linked with the glory of 
man. It fell when he fell and rises as he 
rises. God made nature perfect as to its fit- 
ness for the service required of it, not the per- 
fection falsely ascribed to it by the poets, but 
such perfection as fitted it to be the kindly 
servant of the race who were to become its 
lords. Before the fall God said to Adam, 
" Be fruitful, multiply, replenish and sub- 
due the earth, have dominion over the fish 
of the sea, the fowl of the air, and over 
every living thing that moveth upon the 
earth." God thus gave to the first man and 
his seed the perfecting by care of the home 
he had made for the race. The old poets 
taught us that immediately after Adam's 
sin snakes first began to hiss and creep and 
miraculously develop the poisonous fang; 
lions and tigers ceased their affable gambol- 
ing with lambs and kids and turned with 
love of blood to become the foe of all other 
animal life ; elephants marshaled themselves, 
trumpeting with rage, for their first cam- 
paign of destruction ; eagles grew mad at 
sight of doves and pounced upon them, deal- 
ing death ; and sharks first rolled on back 
and stretched their horrid jaws to entomb 



110 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

their smaller kindred of the finny tribes. 
While these ideas may well pass with the 
grotesque fancies which gave them birth, 
there is a truth hid in all their crudeness 
well worth our attention. 

There can be no doubt that the fall cursed 
nature even as it cursed the race. The sin 
of the first pair inoculated all their surround- 
ings with its blighting virus, and nature re- 
fused its former unlabored reward. Do- 
minion would still be man's ; but with toil 
unmeasurable, sorrow most terrible, care un- 
ceasing, and with his life in jeopardy every 
hour must he now win that lordship over 
nature which without sin would have been 
obtained by the kindly fellowship and friend- 
ship of master and servant. Therefore it 
is ' ' that the whole creation groaneth and 
travaileth together in pain until now," 
" waiting for the manifestation of the sons 
of God." The work which Adam begun 
when he cleared his first acre of its thistles 
and thorns, and with remembrance of Eden 
made a garden of the first wilderness plot to 
which he gave his toil, has been continued, 
haltingly, unlovingly, no doubt, by many, but 
still continued, and whenever nature has 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. Ill 

been kindly and intelligently treated the re- 
ward has amply, surprisingly, repaid the toil 
bestowed. 

Looking at the animals which have been 
domesticated we behold the practical perfec- 
tion in usefulness to man which is possible 
to wise-directed effort. The horse, ox, boar, 
wolf, tiger-family cat, are now the friends of 
man, though reflecting very often in their 
dispositions the disposition of their master. 
The camel and elephant readily yield to the 
service of man. The sacred alligators, kept 
from being provoked by the wanton cruelty 
of man, never attack. Lions and tigers have 
yielded to the will of men, and travelers 
unite in declaring that the most powerful 
beasts observe an honorable truce until it is 
broken by the murdering desire of men. 
Surely these things more than hint of a pos- 
sible dominion of man over the animate 
world. The legend of Orpheus enthralling 
the beasts with music waits to become a 
reality of blessing to the world when this 
portion of man's empire, forfeited by the fall, 
is regained by the full-lived obedience of the 
sons of God whereby they shall gain the 
patience, kindliness, and skill necessary to 



112 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

the reclamation of the animate world from 
its unbridled rage and insatiable bloodthirs- 
tiness. 

If we retain in our concept of heaven the 
four and twenty elders John heard sing- 
ing the new song beside the throne of God, 
dare we cast out the four beasts which, ac- 
cording to his record, joined them in that 
song? Waiving all treatment of the theme 
of animal immortality, we may at least hold 
that this repeated use of beasts in the descrip- 
tion of beatific bliss symbolizes some tribute 
by the powers of nature to the glory of God. 
Nor is it too much to believe that all the sub- 
human orders of creation shall reap some 
benefit from the redemption of the sons of 
God. 

Studying the work which man has done 
in restoring the lost perfection of inanimate 
nature, or in cursing it still more with his 
horrid vices, we see more clearly how closely 
for good or evil it is chained to his own 
destiny. " Just as the law, in asserting the 
freedom of the individual, gives to the parent 
the custody of his own child, however 
vicious that parent may be, so God gives to 
man, in spite of the moral lapses that have 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 113 

overtaken him, power over the world to 
modify it for good or evil at his will. . . . 
Man occupies, in relation to the inferior 
creation, a position analogous to that sus- 
tained by the divine Mediator to all man- 
kind, and by the revelation of the glory of 
God's sons the whole creation will be lifted 
at last to higher beneficence and more per- 
fect majesty." If man as the lord of nature 
exercises his lordship righteously, nature is 
blessed and blesses in return; if unright- 
eously, nature is cursed and curses man with 
scant or foul return. Nature is man's serv- 
ant ; no matter how good it may be in itself, 
its obedience to him harvests evil if his com- 
mands have been evil. This is clearly seen 
in the uses of the forces of nature which man 
has discovered, concentrated, and applied to 
the use of the race. 

The steel which in the hand of one cleaves 
the skull of a brother man, in the hand of 
another cleaves the soil for his brother's sus- 
tenance. The iron which in war's cannon 
belches forth its blasts of death, thunders 
across the rails of continents as the throb- 
bing herald of good will when devoted to the 
arts of peace. The dynamite which at will 



114 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

of slum-bred or king-throned anarchist 
mines cities, demolishes public buildings, 
destroys homes, and sends human -freighted 
ships to ocean's bottom, maiming children, 
dismembering women, and killing thousands 
in a wild chaos of blood and flame — this 
mighty force, at will of others bent on bless- 
ing to the race, clears Hell Gate, tunnels 
mountains, cuts highways for the iron horses 
and fleets of commerce, digs reservoirs for 
storing the refreshment of cities, and gives 
the labor that purchases thousands of happy 
homes. Electricity, seized by men with 
minds inflamed for war, may deliver its bolts 
of death, make possible swifter discharging 
guns, more ready passage of the orders of 
the master murderers at head of armies, 
and flood the gory field with searchlight 
radiance to reveal to dehumanized fiends the 
hell their arts have made on earth ; but this 
matchless offering of the omnipotence and 
omnipresence of God to his sons on earth, 
used as sons of God should use it, binds all 
continents together with its thought-con- 
veying currents, impels all lands to do their 
best each day, conscious that all the world 
shall know their doings to-morrow, bids 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 115 

darkness flee, cuts space in two, increases 
power a thousandfold, and in numberless 
ways of cheering, helping, healing, hasten- 
ing, lines the avenues of the world with the 
trolleys along which God's work may speed. 

Nature at her worst is kindly. Light- 
nings purify. Frost deadens and heat kills 
the countless disease-breeding foes of health. 
Even the poisonous plants have their mis- 
sion of good ; nearly all — perhaps we shall 
find when knowledge fully comes, all — 
poisonous plants rightly used yield a cure 
for one or more of the myriad ills of man. 

More completely do we see the mastery 
of man in perfecting nature as we examine 
the results of his persistent and intelligent 
husbandry. Africa has its Sahara, Amer- 
ica had her Great Desert, every State and 
county has its arid and barren lands, but 
these were and are simply nature's calls or 
commands for man to put forth his skill and 
strength in ennobling toil. God has 
promised his sons that " the wilderness and 
the solitary place shall be glad for them, and 
the desert shall bud and blossom as the 
rose." The disappearance of the great 
American Desert from the geographies of 



116 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

our children, and the blooming of rose, and 
the waving of golden grain over numberless 
acres that our fathers esteemed worthless 
prove God to be laboring at prophecy ful- 
fillment in this nineteenth century. 

Look at that wilderness ! Mr. Lazybones 
and his non-expectant family would not take 
a mile square of it as a gift; yet what he 
refuses Trustful Toiler accepts, and with 
sweating brow clears, burns, ditches, har- 
rows, seeds, and weeds, then grows large 
with honest pride as the rich loam lifts a 
glorious harvest to his gaze. The wilder- 
ness is glad. 

Behold the desert! Mile on mile it 
stretches, fruitful only of death to the trav- 
eler, whether beast or man. The wise look 
on it and descant upon the lack of beneficent 
design in nature. Sanitary commissions 
declare it a menace to civilization. Capital 
curses it as so much unremunerative terri- 
tory its rails must traverse to bind wealth - 
producing districts. One miracle it per- 
forms — Congress and Legislatures are dumb 
before it ! Worthless, an excrescence on the 
national geography, is the universal verdict. 
Now comes one of nature's noblemen. He 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 117 

cuts channels by which the torrents flowing 
from the melting snow of distant mountains 
may wend in and out among the sandy fields, 
or bores deep into the earth until the hid- 
den springs are tapped and the fountains 
below rush up their welcome flow ; and thus 
God's great supply for nature's great need 
being claimed by thought and skill of man, 
flowers bloom, fruits blossom, grain ripens, 
grasses grow, flocks nibble, herds graze, 
gardens thrive, homes rise, cities multiply, 
' ' the restorer of paths to dwell in " has been 
here, and civilization receives a priceless 
jewel as his expression of continued inter- 
est in the world. The desert has passed 
away; instead there is " a watered garden, 
whose waters fail not." 

This, then, is the work which groaning 
nature waits to receive from the sons of 
God. The earth is the Lord's. He has 
given it to his children to enjoy ; not to a 
few select, self-chosen, grasping groups, 
but to all, and for the need of all, he has 
made abundant supply. To us his children 
he commits the division of his bounty; and 
much as we may reject this duty in our daily 
practice we will find at the judgment's bar 



118 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

that for the loving impartiality of that 
division we are accountable unto him. An 
English statesman has wisely said, "The 
laws of nature preside over the creation of 
wealth, but the heart of man over its dis- 
tribution, in sympathy, justice, brother- 
hood/ ' If with considerate sympathy for 
the need of all, exact justice for the rights 
of the lowliest, we do not prove ourselves 
the brothers of all men, no matter what 
their race or color, God will disown us as 
his sons. For if the love which Christ had 
for all is not in us we are not the brethren 
of the Nazarene, and if we are not brothers 
of Christ we are not God's sons, and the 
future has no hope for us, and when hope 
dies in us hope dies for the world. 

Second, Man waits to be perfected through 
his redemption from barbarism by a brother- 
hood that shall repeat for the good of all the 
race the sacrifices offered by God *s sons in the 
past, A brotherhood must be formed that 
will be content to inclose and love not one 
soul less than Christ loved. 

The first great act in this perfecting of 
man was that manifested in Abraham's 
obedience to the call of God to come out 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 119 

from among the unclean of his day and 
father that peculiar people who would be 
zealous of good works. Irksome and un- 
satisfying was the task, for Lot was unsac- 
rificing, Sarah barren of seed and of grace, 
and Ishmael a thorn in the old hero's flesh. 
Yet in and through this man, who, for the 
good that was to come to those unborn, 
turned his back on Ur and kindred, God 
began the work on which he is to this day 
engaged. The people were as yet only in 
the thought of God, but the " father' ' was 
commissioned, and the new race within the 
race begun. Moses found the people pe- 
culiar in that they were a mob of slaves. 
As the Israelites stood on the farther shore 
of the Red Sea, saved by God from engulfing 
waves and Pharaoh's warriors, they were 
without either civil or moral law; a mob 
awaiting nationality and order, religion and 
morality. As a mob they were typical of the 
great soul-hungry masses that herd to-day in 
the moral jungles of our cities, the neglected 
back districts of every rural neighborhood, 
and of those larger, more needy masses that, 
in Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea, 
bow the knee to gods as unhearing as Baal. 



120 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

The commands God gave to that mob he 
gives to all mobs. The truth he revealed 
to them he revealed for all, and he waits 
on the consecration of the children of to- 
day to commission a Moses, and the Aarons 
and the Miriams and the Joshuas necessary 
to the completion of his eternal work. 
Israel knew not God, no more do these 
morally destitute ones to-day. That God 
is they must be taught, that what he would 
have them be and do may be learned by 
them. This was the one truth possessed by 
the mob as they stood singing with Miriam 
when Egypt's dark waters had drowned the 
host of Pharaoh. God was. This Moses 
declared, for " I am that I am" had sent 
him. God loved them. He proved this 
by the miracles that made them free and by 
the overwhelming destruction of their selfish 
oppressors. They must love God. Grati- 
tude was already writing this truth on mind 
and heart. But beyond this was a pall of 
black ignorance they could not pierce. God 
was ; but what was God like ? They could 
only learn what God was like by learning 
what God liked. What did God want them 
to be? This only God himself could tell. 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 121 

Therefore it was that Sinai made its revela- 
tion, and the wilderness experience in the 
hard school that opened many graves taught 
them that when God spake he must be 
obeyed. The wilderness school was a 
kindergarten. God made no attempt to 
answer their mind gropings as to what he 
was like until they had at least feebly 
grasped what they were to be like ; this 
learned, he declared that the beauties he 
desired to behold in them were only the 
beauties which in perfectness existed in 
himself. This remains the desire of God 
for all men to this day. 

The three great demands which God 
through the law made of that mob were 
purity of life, worship through sacrifice, 
and individual and national uprightness in 
all their dealings with others. To learn 
how to teach these truths Moses communed 
with God as friend with friend. To give a 
home to the learning nation Joshua con- 
quered Canaan. That the well-being of all 
was affected by the acts of each was em- 
phasized by Achan's covetous folly and ter- 
rible death. God's refusal, to condone the 
wrongdoing of those in official position 



122 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

caused the chastisement of Eli, Saul, and 
many of the kings. That the truth of this 
progressive revelation of the will of God 
might be kept bright in the minds and 
loved in the hearts of all Abraham's seed, 
David sang, Solomon wrote wisdom, Elijah 
thundered, Elisha wrought wonders, Isa- 
iah prophesied, Jeremiah wept, Ezekiel 
dreamed, and Daniel governed. That they 
failed in holding the mass true to these 
teachings is less proof of their failure than 
the slums of American cities, the submerged 
tenth of England, and the vile immorality 
of the French middle classes are of the 
failure of Christianity. To the same work 
on which these mighty ones toiled, Peter, 
John, Paul, and the college of apostles, 
with James, Barnabas, Apollos, and the 
fathers of the early centuries, consecrated 
their lives. To continue this sacrifice for 
the uplift of humanity those whose lives are 
the only gleams of radiance shining through 
the gloom of the Dark Ages labored, prayed, 
and died. The Reformation was simply a 
new exodus into a new Canaan and the pre- 
cursor of the political revolutions which for 
two centuries have followed one another 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 123 

with almost too great a speed, re-shaping 
the laws of all nations as regards the rights 
of the common people. This onward march 
of the race toward holiness, true worship, 
and human brotherhood halts not in our 
day. " Speak to the people, that they go 
forward " is still the command that rings 
from the heights. We must step into line 
and keep step with the march, no matter 
how great the obstacles, regardless of the 
sacrifice, and continue the progress up the 
steeps toward the consummation that is in 
the thought of God when a perfected race 
shall do God's will on earth, even as it is 
done in heaven. 

The law by which man has been governed 
has made great advances, but even the law 
needs to be born again into a full expression 
of the will of Christ for the present and 
coming generations. The end of the He- 
brew law was the purification of the indi- 
vidual and his preparation for government. 
The end of the Roman law was the ag- 
grandizement of the State, for which the in- 
dividuals existed. The end of Anglo-Saxon 
law is the protection of the individual and 
his right to a voice in the government by 



124 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

which he is ruled. These all wait to be 
merged in the law of Christ, whose end is 
the redemption of the individual, the gov- 
ernment, and the State from the anarchy of 
selfishness outgrowing from the inherent 
weakness and partiality of all these other 
systems ; under this Christ law the purified 
and practically perfected individuals will 
constitute a Christian State, existing to do 
the will of God, governing the people in 
righteousness and equity through their asso- 
ciation in a true world-wide brotherhood. 
Only as men are purified and perfected 
through the redemption of Christ and the 
indwelling of the Holy Ghost, only as they 
become temples of God are they fitted for 
government. Only as government sits at 
Jesus's feet and learns its duty in the sociali- 
zation of men in justice and sacrifice, rather 
than in their individualization in selfishness 
and the exploitation of the weaker, does it 
rise to the dignity of a Christian govern- 
ment. Only as the Christian State obeys 
the Lamb — not lion — who sits on the great 
throne as King of kings, and rules as God 
would have it rule, does it rule for eternity 
and merit the benediction of Jehovah. 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 125 

If we are to perfect the race we must rise 
to a full conception of the fact, and the 
duties arising from the fact, that there is 
but one race in the world. Every man 
who lives, be he saloon keeper or preacher, 
king or slave, dwelling in ice hut of Green- 
land or palace of Germany, in jungle of 
Africa or on river boat of China, is our 
brother. Every woman who breathes, 
whether prostitute or princess, dancing half 
nude in the ballroom or toiling entirely 
nude in the tropics, glorious with the 
beauty of purity or foul with the sin of 
sins, free in Christendom or bound in 
paganism — all these are our sisters. By 
command of God we are our brother's and 
our sister's keeper. The race has but one 
Father, and he is the Father of the Christ in 
whom the whole world is to be bound to 
the heart of God. Not for one land or 
tribe, or family, but for the entire race was 
the Nazarene lifted up ; to all men came his 
revelation of the love of God, and all to 
whom he addressed that message are capa- 
ble of knowing God and being transformed 
into his image. From this race we cannot 

isolate ourselves, and its wrongs and woes 
9 



126 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

we must all suffer. Therefore it is that we 
must cast out evil wherever found, and 
sacrifice ourselves for the redemption even 
of those who have no mercy on themselves. 

Would you be encouraged for this work? 
Then study the history of our own century. 
Follow that hero and his sacrificing wife, 
who, with life in one hand and Gospel in 
the other, march out of civilization into the 
barbarism of the Cree Indians of British 
America, find degradation indescribable 
and savagery rampant. Can these human 
beasts be lifted up ? Is not the only good 
Indian a dead Indian ? Twenty years give 
the answer in degradation vanished and 
holiness flaming with fervor. Ignorance 
has passed away, and educated sons of God 
are masters of waving harvests, lords of 
happy homes, patterns of Christian nobility, 
saints praising God in a score of Christian 
churches. 

Go with that little band who set foot on 
the Hawaiian Islands in 1819. God has 
wondrously prepared for their coming. A 
strange revolution has within a year de- 
stroyed idols and temples, abolished the 
priesthood, and made an end of human 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 127 

sacrifices. King and chiefs own all the 
land, and the people, a horde of half naked, 
drunken savages, living in surf and sand, 
eating raw fish, always fighting, and 
abandoned to sensuality, are their slaves. 
They have no written language, law, or 
courts, nor any conception of their worth. 
Yet in forty years this moral desert is 
abloom with righteousness. The whole 
people are educated, ethically and industri- 
ally, and their language preserved in a trans- 
lation of the Book of Books. In the schools 
native teachers press the work until a larger 
proportion of the natives can read and write 
than can do the same in New England. 
Godliness reigns, and the foundation is laid 
for that temporal prosperity which made 
possible the present contest for their annex- 
ation to the United States. 

Look at the Society Islands in 1823. 
Even as coral reefs belted many of the 
islands with their crimson walls on which 
the waves dashed only to froth and foam in 
vanquished might, so morally the islands 
seemed belted with superstition and idola- 
try, past which religion could not go. The 
idea of God seemed lost, if ever possessed. 



128 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Every man's hand was lifted against his 
neighbor. Licentiousness was king; war 
was perpetual and to the death ; women 
were killed lest they should become the 
mothers of warriors; children, hooked by 
the ears on spears, were led as offerings to 
the rude temples; skulls of the defeated 
beaten in, the brain spread on breadfruit 
leaves and offered to the gods. To crown 
all cannibalism spread its feasts of human 
flesh. Can such wretches become Christ- 
like ? Dare you, O Christian, in love with 
ease and propriety, count these as your 
brethren ? Yet to these came John Williams, 
apostle to the South Seas. God preserved 
his life. In two years the natives were 
tamed, teachable, kind, and diligent. Con- 
verts came, and then rowed from isle to 
isle to tell the story of Jesus. In 1827, at 
Ranatonga, a vast concourse gathered, 
marching with their idols to lay them down 
at Williams's feet. Fourteen great idols, the 
smallest fifteen feet in length, were put 
away that day. Still onward went the 
transforming work. Chapels were built, 
spears which had been used for war now 
formed pulpit balustrades, wooden idols 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 129 

served as props for roofs of sheds and 
barns. The whole population had become 
new creatures in Christ Jesus, and when in 
1834, eleven years after the work com- 
menced, Williams left the island, he could 
say, " I found them all heathen, I leave them 
all professing Christians," and the Bishop 
of Ripon could justly exclaim as he laid 
down the story of Williams's life, " I have 
been reading the twenty-ninth chapter of 
the Acts of the Apostles." 

So you may continue the story of God's 
mighty work through men in uplifting 
those created in his image into a moral 
likeness to himself. 

Jerry McAuley, become the prisoner of 
Jesus Christ, garners a blessed harvest in 
New York. Shaftesbury goes out from 
the House of Lords to spend his nights in 
London slums, loving hundreds back to 
manhood and honest labor, to womanhood 
and virtue. McAll, with three words, "God 
loves you," begins the work that spreading 
from the gay capital through all France, 
rescues thousands from lives of shame. 
Catherine Booth, with arms about the neck 
of the vilest, awakens a love long dead, and 



130 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

soul after soul goes forth purified to call 
her blessed. Livingstone leaves as not the 
least of his legacies to the world, that 
matchless example of fidelity and of the 
perfecting power of the cross, the thousand- 
mile tramp of Susi and Chuma through 
jungle and hostile tribes, bearing on their 
shoulders the loved body of their dead 
master, that it might find a resting place in 
his native land. If Jonathan throws his 
arms about the neck of any in that heavenly 
land surely it must be about these Christ- 
revealing souls. 

But time fails to tell of the blessed results 
that prove the possibility of the elevation 
of the lowliest to the heights where Jesus 
sits if only man will toil like Adams and 
Moffat, and Hannington and Butler, and 
Judson and Coan, and Mackey and the 
host of others whose names are written 
large on heaven's roll of honor. Do you 
still doubt ? Then look on the Bethel of 
Sheshadri in India, Duncan's Metlakahtla, 
Neesima's Doshisha, and Lovedale, Stew- 
art's monument in Africa. 

How can this great work be accomplished ? 
Only by a Christianity that will stretch it- 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 131 

self on Christ's cross in a perfect abandon- 
ment of itself to the redeeming purpose of 
God. The unsaved are massed in mobs as 
dense as that huddled 'twixt the mountains 
and the sea when Pharaoh pursued Israel. 
How shall they be delivered ? Only by 
sacrifice ; there is no other remedy than that 
patterned for us by the Elder Brother on 
Calvary. He who loves Christ must sacri- 
fice himself for those Christ offered himself. 
The call of a needy world is ringing wild 
with anguish this very hour. The heart of 
God is wrung at the manifested hardness of 
his children's hearts. Christ waits for your 
sacrifice to make perfect his own. The 
Comforter waits for your feet or your wealth 
to carry him where through your voice or 
by your hand he can minister to the sorrow- 
ing need of the mob. Will you sacrifice 
yourself for the redemption of the world ? 
Victor Hugo, looking out on the wild mob 
that bathed Paris in blood and shook 
France with terror, exclaimed : 

" Sacrifice to the mob; sacrifice to that 
unfortunate, disinherited, vanquished, vag- 
abond, shoeless, famished, repudiated, de- 
spairing mob ; sacrifice to it, if it must be, and 



132 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

when it must be, thy repose, thy fortune, thy 
joy, thy country, thy liberty, thy life. The 
mob is the human race in misery ; the mob 
is the mournful beginning of the people; the 
mob is the victim of darkness. Sacrifice to it 
thy gold, and thy blood, which is more than 
thy gold, and thy thought, which is more 
than thy blood, and thy love, which is more 
than thy thought ; sacrifice to it everything 
but justice. Receive its complaint ; listen to 
it, touching its faults and touching the faults 
of others ; hear its confession and its accu- 
sation. Give it thy ear, thy hand, thy arm, 
thy heart. Do everything for it excepting 
evil. Alas ! it suffers so much and it knows 
nothing. Correct it, warn it, instruct it, 
guide it, train it, put it to the school of 
honesty. Make it spell truth, show it the 
alphabet of reason, teach it to read virtue, 
probity, generosity." 

Will you do it ? God help you ! The 
world appeals, God appeals, "Help me to 
help men/' O, for the love of those who 
suffer, answer with your lives, * l Here am I ; 
through me bless the world, O God! " 

Third. The kingdoms of the zvorld zvait 
to be perfected by becoming the kingdoms 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 133 

of God and of his Christ. As the Hebrew 
people received direct revelation from God 
as to the duties of national government it 
is but reasonable to believe that those in- 
structions conveyed some idea of God's 
thought concerning the scope and method 
of such government, applicable not only to 
them, but to all people. What, then, are the 
first principles of national government as 
evidenced in the transformation of that mob 
of brickmakers into a nation whose magnifi- 
cence under Solomon was the wonder of 
the world ? a nation which even without a 
capital has preserved its distinctness during 
eighteen centuries of unholy oppression. 

The recognition of God. An atheist na- 
tion is an anomaly, its life a sacrilege. 
The world is not man's, but its Creator's, 
and as manifestly as that Creator gave 
Canaan to Israel has his providence given 
each branch of the race its abiding place. 
Failure to acknowledge this is national in- 
fidelity, and national infidelity is as blasphe- 
mous and vice-gendering as individual 
infidelity. If there be no God the world is 
the child of chance, and if chance be its 
mother lottery is universal and law an 



134 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

impossibility. There is a God ; the world 
is his, his will is law, and his law is universal. 
This universal law is moral as well as 
physical, as commanding in the conscience 
as in the stars. Nations must acknowledge 
this, not in part, but completely. The 
State must understand that it cannot make 
the Mosaic code the basis of its statute law 
and require the obedience of men to that 
code as regards their duties to their fellows, 
and not itself as a State render obedience to 
the God who proclaimed that code, com- 
manding all men, and the institutions of 
men, to obey the whole. Not the last six, 
but all ten of the commandments demand 
the obedience and enforcement of the State. 
Not only does the State need the whole law, 
it needs the entire Gospel as well. As 
surely as the individual needs to be born 
again would he enter the kingdom of 
heaven, so surely must the State be born 
again would it become a kingdom of God ; 
and unless it becomes a kingdom of God it 
will go the way of Babylon, Nineveh, 
Macedon, and Rome. The State needs God, 
and it needs the redemption of Jesus Christ, 
provided by God, enabling it to obey the 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 135 

direction of the Holy Ghost, who is the 
administrator of the present dispensation 
of the work of the sons of God. 

The State must worship God through the 
obedience of its gover?iment to Ids revealed 
will. Politics rules the world. This is the 
divine order. The politics of the past and 
the present have been and are dominated 
by the devil. This is not the divine order, 
but the fruit of a Satan-contrived, theology- 
bolstered theory of separation of Church 
and State which has led saints to try feebly 
to people heaven while permitting Satan 
to annex the earth to the pit. Union of 
Church and State in the old way, or such 
unsatisfactory Satan-pleasing union as now 
exists in most European States, is not desir- 
able, for such union does not effect the 
purpose of God ; but the spiritual union of 
Church and State must be accomplished by 
the sacrificing statesmanship of the sons of 
God of the twentieth century, or both will 
fail of fulfilling the purpose of God. Chris- 
tianity must become political, for Chris- 
tianity must rule the world, and can do so 
only by the Christianization of the methods 
of world government. Politics must be 



136 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

taught the decalogue. Statesmen must go 
to school to Christ and learn of the King of 
kings his method of government. Legis- 
lators must fathom the equity of the Sermon 
on the Mount, and by its spirit shape all 
laws; judges must judge conscious of the 
bar before which they are soon to stand ; 
citizens must vote as Christ would vote were 
their ballot in his hand. Thus all political 
life must be made to manifest the life of 
Christ that is in the world. 

The notion that men have religious duties 
differing from their business and political 
duties is one of the most masterly devices 
with which Satan has degraded the race 
and robbed God of his right to the full 
service of man. Man's duty is not diverse, 
but one; it is to please by serving God. 
Buying and selling, voting and office-holding 
are as much religious acts as praying and 
tithe-giving. Christ waits to rule the world, 
but he can rule only as the sons of men 
who profess to love him manifest that love 
in every act, and not merely in a certain set 
of acts on certain days of the week. The 
State must be Christianized, and this can 
only be accomplished by the entrance of 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 137 

Christians into political life in sucli num- 
bers and with sucli purpose as shall chase 
the traffickers in civic virtue to the rear, and 
man the offices of the nations with men 
who will know no king but Jesus, and who 
will rule according to the direction of the 
mind which was in Christ Jesus and is now 
in them. 

The State must recognize that it is a part 
of the whole family of God, existing simply 
to aid God through love and sacrifice in 
bringing all kingdoms under the scepter 
and righteous rule of Christ. The highest 
wisdom of Satan is manifested in his in- 
genious successes in making man's best fac- 
ulties, passions, and loves pay tribute to 
diabolism. Love of country is just, noble; 
but the love of country that lifts its coun- 
try's flag in unholy menace of all other 
countries manifests a love of evil and not 
of good. No man has a moral right to so 
love his own country as to seek its political, 
geographical, or financial aggrandizement 
through the spoliation of any other country. 
Forcible redress of injustice may be par- 
doned while the race continues so far from 
perfection as it is to-day, though even this 



138 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

must be practiced according to the method 
of Christ, or reap the return of its Satanic 
use ; but the exploitation of weaker or un- 
aggressive nations, as Asia and Africa are 
being exploited to-day by the land-hungry 
sons of Satan who dictate the colonial pol- 
icies of European nations, is an offense to 
the cross and the stumbling-block in the 
path of the progress of Christ in those con- 
tinents. Not even Christianity has a moral 
right to invade with missionaries an unof- 
fending State, unless going, as she should 
go, to increase their power to rule themselves 
and love their fellows ; and converts only as 
reason and aspiration reach out for that 
which satisfies. 

It is not patriotism, but greed, not man- 
liness, but mammon, that directs to-day the 
foreign policy of every European govern- 
ment, and spreads the Jingo fever over the 
mouthing "players to the gallery' ' who 
curse our land. While God has favored 
England with surprising national honors, 
Satan has not been idle, and a tabulation of 
the good and evil that has followed Britain's 
flag makes one wonder which counts most. 
We are no better; the wrongs we inflict 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 139 

upon ourselves, our exterminating perfidy 
with the Indian, our present treatment of the 
Negro, evidence that had Columbia a co- 
lonial policy to foster and administer, St. 
George would not serve to-day as high priest 
at the altar of infamy. 

Looking only at the international aspect 
of the question in our own century, though 
not forgetting the foul record of the past 
decade in India, Africa, and Turkey, we 
find that, so far from rising to the oppor- 
tunities, God-given, to set an example 
worthy of her claim as the foremost Chris- 
tian nation, but measuring and deciding 
every question by her insular selfishness, 
England secured the restoration of the des- 
potism of the French kings when Napoleon 
fell, secretly intrigued against a united Italy, 
opposed the formation of the German em- 
pire by which the Fatherland was given 
brotherhood, feasted the Sultan Abdul Aziz 
at Windsor at the very moment when, as 
Mr. Gladstone says, "the air [of the Bal- 
kans] was tainted with every imaginable deed 
of crime and shame, " and at the close of the 
Balkan war handed back four and a half 
million Christians who had been granted 



140 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

their independence by Russia to the life- 
destroying rule of the Turk ; defeated the 
plan for increasing the power of Greece by 
adding to it the Greek-speaking islands, 
forced the peaceful Boers to trek repeatedly 
for liberty's sake beyond her circle of in- 
fluence, and to-day hails by mouth of lau- 
reate, as England's champion, the foolhardy 
agent of an African plundering company 
who sought with dastardly malice to plunge 
an unoffending State in civil war. 

What does this illustrate ? That we have 
a surplus of Christianity in our national ut- 
terances, but a terrible deficit of Christli- 
ness in our national deeds. Our tongues 
glibly proclaim the brotherhood of man, but 
we live with sword in hand to prove our talk 
a lie. If the status of a nation as to its pa- 
ganism or Christianity is not to be deter- 
mined by its national performances, how is 
it to be determined? The attempt by evil- 
condoning apologists to determine the status 
of a nation by any other test is an insult 
to reason, a species of jugglery to which 
only so-called Christian nations debase 
themselves. Tested by their performances 
England and America prove that they are 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 141 

not Christian. The nations which have 
never been left without their redeeming 
minority, and which, because of his infinite 
purpose for them, God has made the fore- 
most nations in the outward arts of civiliza- 
tion, and which give expression to the wis- 
est humanitarian principles, are still the na- 
tions which by their national acts and their 
national failures to act, the most Satanic in 
their influence on the world. Think of the 
opium traffic forced on China, the State-paid 
prostitutes of the English army in India, 
the protected rum trade, and the winked-at 
slave trade in Africa; and then, looking at 
the white throne of Christ's purity, call Her 
Majesty's empire Christian, if you dare, 
facing that throne to lie. Behold the car- 
nival of vice regnant beneath the dome of 
the Capitol at Washington ; see the poor 
zealots who dare, on their own feet, bear 
their petition to the door of Congress, ar- 
rested for trampling on the republic's grass, 
the same week that monopoly gilds a new 
juggernaut to ride over the common peo- 
ple by trampling upon the republic's Con- 
stitution through purchased legislation ; be 

photographed beside that Chinaman who 
10 



142 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

came hither believing we had sufficient 
honor to respect treaties of our own writing ; 
follow the ships heavy with rum and hand- 
cuffs that sail from the harbors of Boston, 
New York, and Philadelphia ; scan the sig- 
net on every barrel and case of the liquid 
evil that froths at the lips of appetite's 
slaves ; sit in a prison parlor with the wealthy 
murderess confined three hours there to 
satisfy the law for the life she shot away ; 
examine the law which provides no punish- 
ment for the president of a railway corpo- 
ration who virtually stole six million dollars 
from its treasury, while sentencing a young 
workman to fourteen years* imprisonment 
for stealing a pair of shoes, his first offense. 
Look long at these things and at that vast 
mass of present evil that crushes men and 
communities beyond power of protest, and 
from them look up into the sorrowing face of 
the elder Son of God, who stands with whip 
of justice, and lash of sacrifice outstretched 
for us to take and use for him, and call this 
land Christian, if you dare so blaspheme with 
eye lifted to meet the eyes that are as wet as 
when he stood on Olivet looking on proud, 
self-glorifying, God-crucifying, Jerusalem, 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 143 

Christian ! We are no more Christian 
because mysterious Providence has com- 
mitted to us so much of the wealth and glory 
of God than was Judas who carried the 
treasury of Christ in the long ago ! This 
sad fact is true because, of the millions called 
Christian who constitute our best citizens, 
so few are sufficiently righteous to do with 
holy boldness the will of God in their busi- 
ness and politics, and so few so love, with a 
Calvary passion, as to sacrifice themselves 
for the redemption of a groaning race. We 
shall only become Christian nations when, 
obeying the Spirit of Christ, we give our- 
selves to the realization of the universal 
brotherhood of redeemed States, made pos- 
sible through the sacrifice of national self- 
interest. And this mastery of the kingdoms 
by the kingship of Jesus is coming. What 
Christ refused from the foul hand of Satan 
in the wilderness he will receive from the 
sacrificing hand of the conquering sons of 
God. 

" In God and godlike men we put our trust " 

for this beneficent consummation of the re- 
deeming work. 



144 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

The kingdoms of the world were the 
devil's ; they are becoming Christ's. The 
fall made Satan master of the minds of men, 
and through men he shaped the kingdoms 
to do his will. But steadily the patient pur- 
pose of God, working through the love that 
Satan-possessed men could so little under- 
stand, has marched onward, extracting some 
good out of the horrid wretchedness of his 
sin-choosing children. Egypt was Satan's, 
but she gave the world that hope which no 
philosophy can destroy — there is life beyond 
the grave. Nineveh was Satan's, but she 
became the monument of Jehovah's great 
mercy. Babylon was Satan's, but she brought 
some in Israel back to the thought of God, in 
whom alone was safety. Greece was Satan's, 
but she prepared a perfected language in 
which the fuller revelation of the divine love 
might clothe its thought for transmission to 
the remotest age. Rome was Satan's, but 
she built roads over which couriers of Christ 
could speed as swift as those of Satan, and 
armies of Jesus march to more peaceful and 
lasting victories than the legions of Caesar. 
The barbarians of the North were Satan's, 
and filled with his destroying hate they dev- 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 145 

astated the fair plains and valleys of southern 
Europe ; but among the captives they carried 
back were children of high heaven's King, 
who sowed the seed that will one day harvest 
so bountifully as to drive Satan from the 
continent. Spain was Satan's, but from her 
sin-serving sons God drew the crew by which 
Columbus could cross the deep and prove 
his larger provision for the race in this land 
of broad domain. Switzerland was Satan's, 
but a love for freedom as towering as her 
Alpine peaks rose in view of all Europe to 
spread its great contagion through all classes. 
The Netherlands were Satan's, but with 
mighty sacrifice they turned back the proud 
and cruel legions of religious oppressors. 
France was Satan's, and her Reign of Terror 
so monuments the fruit of Satanic possession 
that no other nation to the end of time will 
dare openly cast off all claims of God. Eng- 
land was Satan's, but the centuries have 
found God turning to the advantage of the 
cross of Christ the conquests of her lovers of 
pelf who have crossed every sea and invaded 
every land. America was Satan's; from 
barbarism God dedicated it to Christianity, 
through Christianity he established it in free- 



146 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

dom, by Christianity he broke the shackles 
of the race it continued in bondage, and by 
Christianity he will yet cast out its vices and 
make it in deed and in truth a land whose 
God is in everything obeyed. Australia was 
Satan's; it is becoming the Lord's, and 
even in its upward march settling for all 
nations many of the hard problems of labor 
and capital. The isles of the sea were 
Satan's; they waited for the Lord, and 
when men were obedient to the call of God, 
and went where he commanded, their wait- 
ing was rewarded with his coming, Satan 
was vanquished, and Christ as King en- 
throned. Japan was Satan's; centuries 
had she served him. Christ entered, the 
leaven of Christian progress stirred the an- 
cient realm, and it strides on to be perfected 
in the coming century by greater sacrifices, 
and made God's champion in the East to 
triumph in the name of the Lord of hosts. 
Aye, the kingdom of God comes ! Glorious 
in holiness, perfect in brotherhood, doing 
wonders for man's uplifting, it marches on. 
The Father watches, Christ leads, the Spirit 
inspires, the battle is joined. Who will 
fight with God ? There will be hard march- 



THE WORK OF SONS OF GOD. 147 

ing, scant food, terrible fatigue, awful sor- 
row, sacrificing death ; but there shall be 
victory. Dare you enlist ? Dare you be a 
son of God ? If so answer quick. Your 
arm is worth more to-day than a thousand 
soldiers in the next century. Your life 
will count more to-day than a legion of 
angels in the millennium. Fight ; God fights 
with you. Satan is on the run. Press him 
hard. Hell is contracting. Close its pit. 
Up! Be doing. Prove yourself a son of 
God! 



148 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 



V. 

THE EQUIPMENT OF THE SONS OF GOD. 

HAVE you ever enlarged your mind, fired 
your heart, and aroused your faith by 
building in your " chambers of imagery" 
an ideal, full-orbed man? Only as you 
have, and have put to such majestic cre- 
ations the questions, How would such ideal, 
full-orbed men live? What would such 
true images of the Creator do for the world ? 
and pondered the answer which reason 
quickly voices in your inmost soul, can you 
form any adequate conception of the pos- 
sibilities of the race and the triumphs that 
await the sons of God. 

It is unreasonable and unscientific to 
judge of the possibilities of man by the 
one-sided, half-hearted, wild- willed, unsac- 
rificing individuals about us, or that we 
know ourselves to be. " There is," said 
Coleridge, "some beast and some devil in 
man. So is there some angel and some 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 149 

God in man." If you would know the com- 
ing man who will do the will of God, and 
work the works of God, you must picture 
the man in whom the angel has conquered 
the beast, God cast out the devil, and who 
stands full orbed to all the winds of hell 
and heaven, majestic in his Christliness. 

Would you put in the cabinet of your 
faith a man ? Then you must construct him 
as the scientist does the specimen of perfect 
flower, grain, or beast, he builds for entrance 
to his cabinet of nature at her best. He 
will not accept as the full measure of the 
splendor of the rose the beauty of this one 
or that ; but by utmost diligence to get the 
best from many gardens, and accepting only 
the gems of each, he will construct the best 
of them all into the perfect rose which each 
might have become. So would we build 
our ideal man, mindful that in him good 
and evil lie very close together, virtues and 
vices alternating for control, but that even 
in the worst some good remains, as the sen- 
sitiveness to poetry and music in the heart 
of Nero, and the worshiping love of flowers 
in the breasts of human-sacrifice-offering 
Tlascalans ; yet in the good the expulsive 



150 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

power of their love of holiness drives evil 
from its throne, and its remains are brought 
under the subjection of the mind that is 
stayed on Christ. 

Then let us build a man; for material, 
those who for good or ill have been the 
greatest of the race. From Greece take 
Aristides ; from England, Hampden ; from 
America, Washington ; and from all lands 
those most like them, to give to our cre- 
ation a lofty attribute of justice. Enter into 
him the minds of such as Aristotle, Bacon, 
Kant, Hamilton, McCosh, and Cook, that 
his brain lack not for logic. Build in him 
Isaiah and Ezekiel, Fenelon and Bossuet, 
Bunyan and Milton, Dante and Beecher, 
that his imagination may ride at ease in 
earth or hell or heaven. Give him the 
commanding genius and the strategic grasp 
of the Grants and Napoleons and Hannibals 
and Caesars and Alexanders. Let Peabody 
of New England, and Bright of old Eng- 
land be found in him as representatives of 
business ability and commercial integrity. 
Let Beethoven and Bach, Haydn and Han- 
del, Mozart and Mendelssohn fill his soul 
with melody. David and Homer, Whittier 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 151 

and Tennyson, the Brownings and the 
Careys store his mind with poetry. The 
Baptist and Bushnell, Paul and Punshon, 
Stephen and Simpson fire his tongue with 
eloquence. The Maccabees and William of 
Orange, the Pilgrims and Patrick Henry 
master him for freedom. The blood of 
Gordon and Livingstone, of Chrysostom and 
Polycarp, of Joan of Arc and Florence 
Nightingale throb in his heart the full tide 
of sacrificing love. Give him the tender- 
ness of Lincoln and Spurgeon, of John the 
Divine and the mothers of the race, crown- 
ing all with the conscience of the martyrs 
and prophets and apostles. Now we have 
the upper zones of our full-orbed man well 
formed, but he is not complete. We will 
be true to science. There are lower zones, 
and we will fill them. Having put into 
the highest zones all these noblest traits of 
character that the race affords we dare 
enter in the lower zones the greatest 
growths of human wickedness that the 
race has produced. Resurrect the Pha- 
raohs and Herods, the Neros and De Me- 
dicis of the human family, and put them in 
this ideal man. They will but give exer- 



152 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

cise for the strength and skill of the powers 
within his upper zones. By the taming 
and training of them he will prove himself. 
A man can stand grit in his boots if he has 
God in his soul. He can master the tem- 
pests of passion if he possesses the Niagara 
of grace. 

Now, how would such full-orbed men 
live? Would not each of them measure 
well toward the standard set us by Christ, 
"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in 
heaven is perfect " ? What would such men 
do for the world? This is best answered 
by considering how much to bless and cheer, 
to righten and brighten, each of those did 
perform whom we counted worthy of en- 
trance into the upper zones. But no such 
ideal man has lived ! Wrong. More ideal 
than is the highest ideal that unideal men 
can rear was the character that rose from 
amid Judean darkness nineteen centuries 
ago. That all-perfect character commands 
that we grow into his likeness, or prove by 
our failure that we have no fellowship with 
him. As we elsewhere declared, the Chris- 
tian must be Christ continued in the world. 
This means that the world is to be peopled 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 153 

with a race who will be as Christ's unto 
God. Stumbles your faith at thought of 
even trying to attain the perfection of such 
an ideal man as we have built? Then 
verily you must pray, " Lord, increase my 
faith! " for Christ is immeasurably greater, 
nobler, grander than that ideal man with 
whom I have tried to startle you as to the 
possibilities before you, and the reality that 
soon will make many glorious. And unto the 
measure of the stature of the fullness of 
Christ you must attain, or dwell a spiritual 
dwarf throughout eternity. 

Remember, God is not partial. There is 
not a height of spiritual experience attained 
by Wesley, Knox, Spurgeon, Brooks, 
Moody, Mills, or Chapman that is not 
attainable by you if you will but seek it 
with mind, soul, and heart. You may not, 
need not, become denomination founders, 
great pastors, or mighty evangelists, as they 
have become, but you can have as much of 
God in your heart, as present a Christ in 
your life, and as complete an indwelling of 
the Holy Ghost as ever blessed one of 
these. The secrets of grace which God has 
revealed to others he will reveal to you if 



154 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

you will seek as they sought, and in your 
life obey as they were compelled to obey in 
their lives in order to dwell in the secret 
place of the Most High. Not in the partial- 
ity of God, but in the abandonment of the 
soul to him and his work will be found the 
key that unlocks the mystery of the soul- 
transforming influence of the sin-conquering 
children of God. You do not need to flame 
because your soul is burning as you talk 
with Jesus on all the way of life ; you do 
not need to preach to thousands because 
you have a message that makes glad your 
heart; you are not to pine because God 
does not see it wise to call you to some 
great task, as though he counted you less 
worthy than the soul commissioned. You 
have only to be ready to do promptly every 
task, be it great or small, his providence 
may commit to your hand. Remember, 
every task is also a test. Not every general 
who gets his commission wins his battle ; 
not every man who enters office amid great 
acclaim leaves it with honor; not every 
preacher who mounts the pulpit steps 
mounts also to the throne. Count it all 
joy if God will but lift you to the highest 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 155 

heaven from the humblest place, for verily 
there are many who from the highest place 
within the gift of God go down to lowest 
hell. No humbler life was ever lived than 
that of the Nazarene; yet no life has taken 
on so wide a reach. None were so poor as 
to do him reverence ; yet none are now so 
rich as not to need his pardon. Christ 
reached the heights by way of the valley — 
even that of Jehoshaphat — and they who 
claim him as their Lord should not presume to 
walk an easier, more applause-winning way. 
All that Christ was in holy living and 
brotherly kindness it is possible for you to 
be if you will but apply yourself to learn 
the lesson he set for all the race. All he 
was able to do for men about him you can 
do for those who look to you for aid if you 
will empty }^ourself of evil, and, filled with 
the Spirit, conduct the Father's blessing to 
those who need it in your community. All 
that the greatest of the sons of God have 
done for him in the ages past may be 
repeated to-day, and in the future under 
better conditions for noble work than those 
which they were compelled to face and 
conquer. 



156 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Greater victories, mightier revivals, more 
wonderful moral revolutions, grander reve- 
lations of character, await God's sons who 
shall be blest with life in the twentieth 
century than any the world has ever seen. 
It cannot be otherwise. We have the 
"better things ;" we are reaping where 
the fathers sowed in blood ; we are nearing 
the consummation of God's long work of 
grace. It would be no more wonderful for 
our children to hear the voice of the Saviour- 
Judge, and the song of the angelic host 
attending the descending throne, than for 
them to hear our voices after we are dead, 
speaking our message to them through the 
phonograph, or hear the music of the 
present age swelling outward from the 
gramophone. Some one is to win great 
victories for Immanuel in the days just at 
hand ; some one is to beat the swords into 
plowshares and the spears into pruning 
hooks. Many shall clothe poetry, prose, 
music, and art in far nobler dress than they 
have ever worn as yet. Many are to herald 
the King's coming in every community; 
many are to lead the conquering host to 
God that shall aid in the coronation of the 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 157 

King of kings. Shall you? Then you must 
be at work to-day. God commissions none 
who are not in the ranks. You must enlist 
or you will never be promoted. 

Think not that you have a harder task 
than God set those who toiled for him in 
other days, and whose work waits your labor 
for its perfection. The mob you are to face 
is not more fierce than that to which Peter, 
James, and John sacrificed their lives. The 
rocks which in China, Japan, or Korea may 
be hurled at you will not be more hard than 
those that fell on Paul at Iconium and Lystra. 
The steel that may pierce your heart if you 
dare carry the Gospel of freedom to darkest 
Mohammedanism is not more sharp than the 
spears that Winkelried gathered in his 
bosom at Sempach. The chains that bind 
millions to the dead formalism of religion 
to-day are not more securely riveted than 
were the bonds of its mother error in the 
days of Luther. Nail the theses that will 
expose the vile hypocrisy and sinful indul- 
gence of those who defile the Church of God 
through their unworthy membership, and 
name the Tetzels who for love of place pro- 
claim a less exacting Gospel for the unright- 
11 



158 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

eous rich, to the door of your neighborhood's 
cathedral, no matter how humble it maybe, 
and your hammer will sound as far as Luther's 
has. The moral degradation of even the 
slum districts of our day is not worse, though 
perhaps more congested, than Wesley found 
all England in his time. Dare to invade 
these outcast regions and proclaim there the 
cleansing Gospel of the Crucified and a ref- 
ormation as far-reaching as that which in 
a century stretched its blessing over many 
millions will prove you as much a son of 
God as the toiler of Ep worth. The rum 
traffic has not the host of sympathizers which 
Lincoln was compelled to face in his contest 
with the slave masters, but a still more glo- 
rious crown awaits that president who shall 
write America's emancipation from the rum 
demon than crowns the martyred brow of 
him who made men's bodies free. The New 
York that confronts Parkhurst, the Chicago 
that arouses Clarke, and the municipal cor- 
ruption which appalls you in your home city 
is not more vile, nor more strongly in- 
trenched than that Savonarola faced, fought, 
and for a time vanquished in olden Florence. 
The rights of the toiler have more exponents 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 159 

to-day than had the rights of man when 
Magna Charta was wrested from the rampant 
John. 

You are to surpass the grandest deeds of 
the olden time, and to make your task less 
difficult God has given you your greater 
equipment, and made the race more respon- 
sive to every appeal for a more practical 
Christ-imitating righteousness. The devil 
was not ashamed of himself in the days of 
Christ, or he would not have dared to show 
his unholy person to the Son of God and 
wage his brazen contest in the wilderness. 
He was unabashed in the days of Wesley, for 
lewdness of speech was on the lips of high 
and low, male and female, throughout all 
England. Verily we live in better times. 
Satan has become a gentleman. Vile like 
many a prince, vulgar like many a plebeian, 
still he moves in smoother ways. This may 
be more destroying to the easily duped, and 
more difficult to contend against because of 
his wily subtlety; but it is a protection to 
these much-loved bodies of ours. Satan may 
break more hearts to-day, but he breaks 
fewer heads. He still destroys many souls, 
but he leaves fewer marks on the bodies of 



160 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

men. He is no longer brazen, but sly. He 
hisses no more. He has learned of his 
charmers and sings. He no longer stamps 
with vengeful foot, but dances with all the 
lightness of lust. This is only another way 
of saying that the fight in which you are to 
enter is by far a more spiritual one than the 
fathers were called to wage. There will be 
less to arouse that bodily fear it is so diffi- 
cult to overcome, but the subtle contests of 
the Spirit will demand the full exercise of 
those holy powers which prove that in you, 
his temple, God's Shekinah dwells. 

The denominations wait to be perfected. 
The Church of England, and her child this 
side the sea, needs the utmost endeavor of 
her noblest sons of to-day to stay the rising 
current of ritualism that flows swift toward 
Rome. The blood of Latimer and Ridley, 
of Hooker and Cranmer, cries out against the 
Church for which they died becoming a re- 
cruiting office for that papacy whose sons of 
to-day manifest no sorrow that their fathers 
murdered such sons of God. The work to 
which Seabury, White, Elliott, and Brooks 
gave their lives demands strenuous effort 
from the men of the present to make Church- 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 161 

man and Christy-man synonymous as de- 
scriptive of their lives. Presbyterianism 
needs a host of elect children if Calvin and 
Flavel, Knox and Chalmers, Doddridge and 
Henry, Tennent and McCosh, the Alex- 
anders and the Hodges, are not to have 
toiled in vain. The Baptists need more of 
that spirit of intrepid straightforwardness 
which characterized the herald whose title 
they bear, if Bunyan is to joy in their prog- 
ress, Williams to have sons for his freedom, 
Milton to greet them in paradise, Carey and 
Jtidson to see the heathen bowing at the 
feet of Jesus, and Spurgeon and Gordon to 
rejoice in heaven that it was theirs to help 
lay the foundation for the triumphs of the 
twentieth century. The Lutherans need a 
new thunderer to shake them from the 
dream state that has left the Fatherland a 
century behind in the upward march of 
spirituality and life-transforming piety, if 
the first thunderer is not to groan at so un- 
worthy a monument. They upon whom the 
mantles of Muhlenberg and Hartwick have 
fallen may well pray that the Lutheranism 
that is transformed when stretching to the 
contest with other branches of the American 



162 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Church may leaven the millions of Germany 
and the Northlands, who only need more 
spiritual priests to produce more spiritual 
people. Bunsen and Zinzendorf, Christlieb 
and Harms are glorious examples of the 
Christliness the glorified Luther longs to 
behold in the character of all his sons. As 
long as the American Constitution endures 
will it appeal to the children of the Pilgrims 
to honor by their works the labors of their 
fathers. Hooker and Sam Adams were the 
prophets of American freedom, Edwards 
and Henry Ward Beecher, Lyman Beecher 
and Leonard Bacon, Timothy Dwight and 
Charles Finney, Moses Stuart and Horace 
Bushnell have set high the standard of 
Congregationalism ; yet higher still that 
standard must be carried if worthy fathers 
are to be blest with worthy sons. Metho- 
dism needs sons who will toil terribly, 
daughters who will live gloriously, if the 
triumphs of the past are but to herald the 
greater things to be. Her altars need new 
Whitefields and Summerfields ; her pulpits 
cry loud for more Simpsons and Punshons 
and Douglasses; her schools for greater 
Bascoms and Olins ; her text-books for more 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 163 

Clarkes and Whedons; her literature for 
stronger-penned Currys and McClintocks. 
The masses long for other Cartwrights and 
Father Taylors. Her bishops must learn 
sacrifice from Asbury and McKendree ; her 
preachers surpass the tenderness of Janes 
and Lovick Pierce ; her laymen work more 
grandly than Phillips or Fisk; her daugh- 
ters serve humanity as loyally as Mary 
Fletcher and Eliza Garrett, and wear honor 
as Christlikely as Katherine Garrettson and 
Lucy W. Hayes. 

Yes, the denominations wait to be per- 
fected ; not that the denominations be glo- 
rified, but that, by the Christ spirit and the 
Christ wisdom entering into and mastering 
each, the day may soon dawn when the 
Saviours great prayer shall be answered in 
the confederation of all the branches of his 
Church in one great fold, which, working 
ever in the unity of the Spirit, will so shep- 
herd the world that all men shall be found 
in the bonds of peace. 

The arts and sciences, music and litera- 
ture, wait to be perfected. The golden age 
is not past; it is yet to come. It may be 
here to-morrow. Raphael may paint his 



164 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

Madonnas, and bring the world to its knees, 
but coming sons of God will paint blessed 
Mary's more blessed Son with such com- 
manding pencil that the world will arise to 
do his bidding. Michael Angelo may make 
men quake with horror as they survey his 
* ' Last Judgment, " but there will rise a more 
Christ-understanding master who will so 
picture the sorrow of the heavenly Judge in 
bidding any child of earth depart from him 
forever that all but very fiends must yield 
and by love so compassionate be drawn to 
serve him. Rubens may joy in setting on 
the canvas the adoration of the wise-men 
kings, but a greater shall inspire us more 
blessedly as he paints the adoration of the 
princes of the coming centuries to the King 
of kings. Leonardo thrills us with his 
masterly " Last Supper," but there will rise 
one who will by faith enter where John en- 
tered, and hither returning paint for us 
the feast in which our own soul will partici- 
pate, even the "Marriage Supper of the 
Lamb." 

Shakespeare wrought for God and man, 
but there shall a Son of God arise who will 
soar to loftier heights, and, passing from 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 165 

the portrayal of conscience branded by the 
hot irons of murderous memory, voice the 
victorious exultation of a conscience at 
peace with God. Dante dipped his pen in 
gall, and from a mind necessarily vitiated by 
the awful vileness of his environment drew 
such pictures of eternal woe that the world 
has stood aghast for century following cen- 
tury ; but there will rise a son of God who 
will dip his pen in the blood that flowed 
and write such a poem of sacrificing justice 
that hearts like adamant must melt and 
choose the better part. Milton, blind to 
earth, could see from hell — through para- 
dise — to heaven, and write as though he 
had trod the streets of this trinity of won- 
ders ; yet a greater than Milton shall rise, 
and with a mind cleared for truer vision, 
rhythm tuned for richer harmony, pen 
trained to express loftier thought, so de- 
scribe the glory awaiting the sons of God 
that Christ by his speedy coming will crown 
him as heaven\s laureate. 

Music will catch the melody of the ten 
thousand times ten thousand and thousands 
of thousands, and will bless earth with such 
songs as angels sing. Has Haydn filled 



166 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

thy soul with awe as the glorious harmonies 
of the "Creation" have shaped chaos into 
order before thy enraptured mind? Ex- 
pand thy soul, for it is yet to hear the 
Haydn of to-morrow making the wide 
world shout its joy as men sing the an- 
thems of the " Consummation.' ' Some son 
of Mendelssohn will sing of mightier tri- 
umphs than " Elijah " ever wrought. Han- 
del has blessed the earth with the ringing 
gladness of the " Messiah," but a greater 
than he shall yet set the expectant sons of 
God rehearsing the alleluias which they 
shall sing when, by the crowned King of 
men, the kingdom is delivered to the Father, 
Messiah's work well done. 

Greater secrets than Galileo, Newton, 
Davy, Watts, Morse, Gray, Edison, or 
Roentgen have fathomed wait on the per- 
sistence and adaptation of the sons of God 
to still further bless and change the world. 
Marvels more wonderful than steam or elec- 
tricity, than telegraph or telephone, than 
graphophone or X rays shall continue the 
world's amazement and serve as means by 
which the men of earth shall do more per- 
fectly their heavenly Father's pleasure. 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 167 

Dare you not believe that these greater 
things are your portion? That the future 
is to record more glorious deeds by those 
who toil for God than the past has known? 
Then let me urge you to believe the 
Christ. On that last night before he was be- 
trayed, as he sat amid those sorrowing 
disciples of whom he was taking leave, 
and whom he would cheer by the prospect 
of the glorious service they were to do for 
him, he promised, and promised for us as 
well as for them, that ' t he that believeth on 
me, the works that I do shall he do also ; 
and greater works than these shall he do ; 
because I go unto my Father.' ' Greater 
things than Christ! The disciple work 
more wonders than his Lord! The chil- 
dren of earth continue the works begun by 
the highest Son of heaven ! Surely this 
must be a mistake. If so, then is this en- 
tire blessed book a mistake. The majesty 
of this truth is so measureless that our faith 
cannot bound it, but its reality is so in- 
dubitable that it proves its truth by our 
Christly service even while we doubt. This 
is just the equipment of the sons of God. 
This is but the natural endowment of the 



168 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

"better things' ' which are our portion in 
these later times. 

If you are a temple of the living God you 
must be open every day and hour of your 
life. From your temple's altar the incense 
of unceasing prayer must rise in supplica- 
tion for the need of others. No money 
changers or traffickers may be housed there 
to defile you. Thy temple must be holy, 
the resort of saints for communion with 
God. If you are a temple you must in- 
crease the value of holiness in your com- 
munity, as your church building increases 
the value of property. You must be a 
haven of rest to the weary and of safety 
to the oppressed, and all this you are to be, 
not because you are a temple, but because 
you are a temple of God, his instrument 
for the help of the world. 

If the tongue of fire has come upon you it 
must flame through you. Wherever the 
Holy Ghost is there is a perpetual Pente- 
cost. If you are indued with might, even 
the spirit of power, in your inner man, then 
your outer man must give forth its glory as 
the globe of the incandescent lamp lets out 
the radiance of the glowing wire. If the 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 169 

Holy Ghost is in you he cannot be idle. 
He must work the works of God. By your 
contact with the needy must he emit that 
blessed energy that will cheer and bless and 
save them. You are his conductor, the live 
wire of grace that must carry the effulgent 
glory of heaven and the sin-mastering 
power of the throne from the Triune to 
the needy children of earth. 

If Christ be in you he cannot be less the 
Christ because he is in you. Christ cannot 
be idle. He must work, and he must work 
through you, granting to you honor among 
men for doing work which you do only be- 
cause he works by you, yet work which he 
could not do did he not do it through you. 
If Christ dwells in you he must walk on your 
feet, lift with your hands, speak with your 
tongue, in perfecting his great work for man. 
Greater works than he did in the olden time 
must you do to-day, yet not you, but the 
Christ in you. 

Study closely these blessed farewell words, 
and you will find a sharing Christ. Heaven 
is already preparing her welcome for him. 
He is soon to return to the Father. Memory 
pictures him the glory and blessedness of the 



170 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

heaven he resigned for our redemption. But 
he is going back ; soon his mission as the 
earth-man will be finished, and into the glory 
he will ascend. That glory is sufficient for 
the bliss of millions. The avenues of that 
land have room for numberless mansions of 
God's building. He will share his glory with 
these who toil for him. His home shall be 
their home. What he enjoys they also shall 
enjoy. Nor will he leave them without re- 
vealing his loving purpose. What joy filled 
those listeners' hearts when he promised: 
" I go to prepare a place for you. And if I 
go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself; that 
where I am, there ye may be also." 

Yet even with this promise there is agony 
in the breasts of those disciples. Long will 
be the time ere he comes. Sore will be their 
trouble through the years. O, if they but 
enjoyed his calmness and freedom from fear ! 
He reads their hearts, and gives at once the 
enriching promise, ' ' My peace I give unto 
you." He can have no peace unshared with 
them. No joy, save as those who love him 
enjoy the fullness of his perfect life. Still 
they are sad, for he tells them he is soon to 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 171 

be put to death. Death ! Why, it will also 
soon come to them ! Their peace will have 
an end. They may die before he comes to 
take them to the mansions prepared. The 
wings of hope are clipped, and they look with 
despair into the face that is to precede them 
to the grave. Once more speaks the shar- 
ing Christ, " Because I live, ye shall live 
also." Death shall not hold him. He shall 
live again, and his resurrection's triumph 
shall be shared with them. 

Now he speaks to them concerning the 
work they are to do for him, and blameless 
are they that their hearts grew heavy at the 
task. Continue the work of the Wonder- 
worker ! Preach to those who had heard the 
voice of Him who spake as never man spake 
before ! Build where divinity had laid the 
foundations ! How could they ? They could 
because all the power which the Father had 
committed unto him he would now commit 
to them. He would not rise to the throne 
without sharing its prerogatives with his 
people. He would be lifted up only to lift 
them to more glorious power; and so he 
promised, "Verily, I say unto you, He that 
believe th on me, the works that I do shall 



172 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

he do also/' But this does not satisfy the 
bestowing, sharing love of Christ. Do only- 
such works as his ! What, shall he so limit 
his gift that the full measure of the power 
bestowed shall never be known on earth? 
No ; they shall exercise to the full the power 
he used only in part. They shall do more 
than he; thus will he be glorified in them. 
Therefore he gives the promise, * ' ' Greater 
works than these shall he do, because I go 
to my Father ; ' and we will use our wisdom 
in multiplying the opportunities for the use 
of this enduement by those who do our will." 
With reverent boldness, then, let us con- 
trast the works of Christ and those performed 
by his disciples in all the ages. We must 
first learn the right standard of measure- 
ment. Our eyes are so dazzled by increas- 
ing bread and undiminished fish, the res- 
toration of sight, or hearing, or speech, that 
our reason fails to grasp the mighty moral 
revolutions which were the real results 
sought for in our Saviour's use of his won- 
drous power. To heal the body is much, 
to heal the spirit is infinitely more ; and it 
is in this realm of spiritual healing and re- 
making where we are able to rise to do 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 173 

greater things than Christ. Great things in 
the physical realm we do for him. The 
bread that keeps alive the thousands of 
sorely afflicted Armenia, sent by those 
who are passionately fond of wealth, is a 
miracle of to-day as wonderful as that which 
multiplied the scanty store found at Beth- 
saida or beside Gennesaret. The appeals 
of Christly souls perform just this wonder 
of feeding the hungry whenever a famine 
or flood or persecution lifts its cry of need. 
We speak of conversion as a miracle of 
grace. It is; but is there not far more of 
wonder in each conversion than we usually 
suppose? We are so much occupied in 
praising God for what we have been saved 
to that we forget to consider what we have 
been saved from. I do not mean the mire 
in which we were wallowing or the hell 
toward which we were journeying, but the 
untold evils of existence from which we 
were only saved by our conversion. If the 
veil should be drawn so that we could be- 
hold the evil from which our conversion 
saved us we would be ready to declare that 
the touch of the friendly hand that won us 

just as the legion of devils was about to enter 
12 



174 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

was as wonderful an act as that of Christ at 
Gadara. Our resurrection is no less a won- 
der because it raised us a new creature in 
Christ Jesus even while the sword of the 
rider of the pale horse was lifted to strike 
us with eternal death. " The evils turned 
back by the conversion of those present in 
thousands of Christian congregations are as 
ghastly and terrible as the evils that shrank 
before Christ's word in the days of his flesh.' ' 
And it is by just this labor of healing and 
helping that the sons of God are through 
faith and love performing greater wonders 
than Christ performed in Galilee or Judea. 
He sowed, we are reaping, and the harvest 
is glorious. Did his eyes behold a stater in 
the mouth of a fish ? So do the eyes of the 
mind he gives to us enable us, times with- 
out number, to lay bare the secrets of the 
hearts of those who wait upon our ministry, 
and gain their tribute for our Christ. We 
may not always know when we have exer- 
cised this preterhuman discernment, but 
the heart whose secret we have read knows, 
and has its message from the throne. Our 
prayers, do they not annihilate space as 
blessedly as Christ's? By as much as the 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 175 

world is wider in our day than in the days 
of the Son of Man has God increased the 
power of the Christian's prayer to carry 
blessing round the world. Pray in America, 
and answering brightness gleams in Africa. 
Pray in Asia, and missionary revivals start 
forthwith throughout England and the colo- 
nies. Pentecost, what a wonder it was ! 
More marvelous than any manifestation of 
the power of Christ in healing the deaf and 
dumb at Bethsaida, or stilling the storm on 
Galilee, or giving sight to Bartimeus at 
Jericho, or raising Lazarus at Bethany, was 
the fruit of the descent of the tongues of 
fire which transformed that upper room into 
the holy of holies of the newborn Church. 

Look also at the more lasting results of 
these spiritual works than of the mere 
physical miracle. This it is that unlocks 
the mystery of that life beyond the grave 
where there shall be no more pain, nor sor- 
row, nor tears, whither death may not 
invade. The healed soul is healed for ever- 
more, the healed body is healed but to fester 
again with as deadly sores. The soul that 
came back from the embrace of death at 
command of Christ, prophet, apostle, went 



176 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

back through as great fear to its con- 
fines again, but the soul that walks forth 
from the tomb of a dead self shall never 
die. Our work it is as sons of God to 
perform these wonders that shall endtire 
eternally. Those blind eyes which Christ 
spoke back to sight closed again in the 
blindness of death ; but when that man who 
was spiritually blind is anointed unto sight 
by your sacrificing labor, and exclaims, 
" Once I was blind, but now I see," he finds 
a vision that shall grow more perfect as 
time fades and eternity rolls forever on. 
Those ears blessed with the voice of Christ 
as the first tones that ever sounded in them 
became deaf again when death whispered 
its message to them ; but the soul which by 
your entreaty and your prayer shall obey 
the still small voice its new-gained faith 
shall hear, will never cease to sing, ' ' His 
pardoning voice I hear," as long as the 
chorus of adoration rings in the ear of Him 
who saves. Friends carried a paralytic one 
day to be touched by Christ, and that touch 
received he went forth rejoicing in perfect 
health ; but the day came when they who 
lowered him through the roof were called 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 177 

to lower him in the tomb. Health had 
spent its strength. The cure of Christ for 
his body was ended, and the dust claimed 
its own. Ours it is to carry those paralyzed 
by sin to the ever-healing Christ, that 
through our spirits he may impart the touch 
that shall work the perfect cure and give 
them the spiritual health for which they 
shall praise God forever. Lazarus came forth. 
He who had been dead kissed again the 
sisters who mourned him ; but there came 
a day when those sisters with heavy hearts 
brought forth once more those treasured 
graveclothes and re-wrapped the body of the 
scribe. Health had come, and health had 
vanished. The miracle was ended. Laza- 
rus was again entombed. Your holy task 
it is to speak those dead in trespasses and 
sin into that fullness of life that will never 
know an end. 

Thus we learn the full reach of the 
equipment of the sons of God. The physi- 
cal benefits of Christ's miracles were but 
temporary; the spiritual benefits of the 
greater works he gives us to do are eternal. 
This is the dignity of the work of the sons 
of God. The pentecostal endowment can 



178 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

never be diminished by use. Our greater 
works of spiritual upbuilding are not to be 
occasional, like Christ's physical miracles, 
but continuous in their relief of the great 
want of a supplicating world. Not the 
wants of one family, but of all families, are 
to be supplied ; not the altars of one Church 
Pentecosted with power, but the altars of 
all Churches overflowing with souls renewed 
and filled with all the fullness of God ; not 
one land redeemed, but all lands glowing 
with the glory of God; not one nation 
owning Christ as King, but all nations 
become the kingdom of God through the 
wonder-working achievements of the sons 
of God. 

This great day is coming, the world will 
do the will of God. For him the cables will 
carry their messages of peace; for him 
the ships will sail the seas ; for him the 
marts of righteous trade will amass their 
profit ; for him the manufactories will give 
forth their multifarious products ; for him 
the mines will uncover their stores of 
wealth ; for him steam and electricity will 
speed their innumerable trains ; for him the 
schools will drill the minds of millions ; for 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 179 

him the cities will do righteousness; for 
him the States will master evil ; for him the 
nations will exercise their diplomacy; for 
him the banners of all people shall wave to 
the breeze ; to him shall the kings and the 
rulers bow themselves, and unto him shall 
the gladdened hearts of the children of men 
uplift their songs of triumph. He who 
gave himself for the world will not fail of 
his victory. Christianity is for the world, 
and the world is for Christianity ; the day 
comes when through the labors of the sons 
of God Christianity will possess its own, 
and, possessing it, will dare face the throne 
of the descending Christ. 

At the last session of the World's Parlia- 
ment of Religions Professor Tomlinson 
brought to the Hall of Columbus his won- 
derful Apollo Chorus of four hundred and 
fifty voices. The members of this Chorus 
were his own choice from the twelve thou- 
sand members of his four great classes of 
the three preceding years, and had been 
trained to render the oratorios of the great 
masters at the World's Fair Music Hall 
during the weeks of the White City's life. 
Every member of the Chorus was a soloist 



180 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

of skill and power, yet all were here massed 
as the keys of a splendid human instrument 
of harmony. For the closing session of 
this remarkable assembly they were to sing 
the " Hallelujah Chorus." Dr. Barrows had 
pledged the Parliament that they would 
hear such music as had never charmed their 
ears before, nor would again until they had 
entered within the pearly gates, and the 
music that thrilled six thousand souls that 
night more than fulfilled the pledge. 

The Chorus rises. The gallery has been 
given over to their use. Here at the right 
rise one hundred bassos. Next them stand 
eighty tenors. Across on the left are one 
hundred and twenty altos, and stretching 
in a double row from end to end of the rear 
gallery are one hundred and fifty sopranos. 
No orchestra is to share to-night with the 
full, rich melody and uplifting power of the 
human voice. The piano gives the chord, 
and then the only instrument that aids the 
choral host is the tiny baton in their lead- 
er's hand. The moment has come in the 
movement of the oratorio for the songs of 
men to lift their ascription of praise and 
honor to the Christ of God. First bursts 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 181 

forth the deep tones, repeated over and 
over again, of the rolling, stirring bass : 
" He shall be King of kings. He shall be 
King of kings.' ' Then the altos lift the 
same great title on the pinions of their me- 
lodious tones : " He shall be King of kings. 
He shall be King of kings." The tenors are 
now inspired, and still higher they raise the 
glorious strain : ' ' He shall be King of 
kings. He shall be King of kings/ ' Now, 
with full voice, and faces that seem to say, 
" So sing our hearts," the one hundred and 
fifty sopranos ring out high over all: "And 
Lord of lords. And Lord of lords." And 
then the four hundred and fifty joining, 
voice to voice, swell the exultant unison : 
* ' He shall be King of kings, and Lord of 
lords. He shall be King of kings, and 
Lord of lords. Hallelujah ! Hallelujah ! 
Hallelujah ! " 

Then, as if from out the eternal splendors, 
a voice that would sound the hearts of men 
put the query : " How long will your halle- 
lujahs ring when at heaven you are at home ? 
How long shall Christ be King of kings, 
and Lord of lords? " The chorus gives re- 
ply. Deep as from hearts long schooled 



182 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

in sorrow, but now alive with joy, roll- 
ing out the profound utterance of the 
bass: "He shall be King of kings, and 
Lord of lords, forever and forever and ever 
and ever and ever." Then the altos lift 
the confident acclamation, as from hearts in 
which the Christ was newly born : ' ' Forever 
and forever and ever and ever and ever." 
Higher still the tenors steadily raise the re- 
sounding note of faith, as though they would 
conquer the world with song : ' « Forever and 
forever and ever and ever and ever." Then, 
like a prophecy of the music that carols 
from the spirits of the ten thousand times 
ten thousand burst out the sopranos with 
the same unending song. Once again the 
full chorus unite their soul-revealing voices, 
and on and on and on as though time were 
already dead, they repeat the stirring truth : 
" He shall be King of kings, and Lord of 
lords forever and forever and ever and ever 
and ever." Then once more, "Hallelujah! 
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" This time not 
four hundred and fifty merely, but thou- 
sands added unto them, are singing the 
spirit-lifting chorus. For once at least God 
heard from hearts his Spirit taught that 



THE EQUIPMENT OF SONS OF GOD. 183 

matchless chorus sting, and as I joined my 
voice to that heaven-inspired throng there 
flashed upon my mind a vision of the day 
that is to be, when from out the everlast- 
ing city the Son of God shall come en- 
throned in glory with hosts of angelic 
guards about him. The trumpet sounds, 
the dead arise, the gathered host bend ador- 
ing hearts to the Lamb who for them was 
slain. Then, as about that great white 
throne there gathered the people from the 
ends of the earth, and the kings of all na- 
tions laid down the scepters of their power, 
I heard the thunderous bass of Africa's ran- 
somed millions roll out the adoration of 
their hearts to Him whose cross their kins- 
man bore. Europe, her millions upon mil- 
lions singing with all the gladness of vic- 
torious faith, lifted voice to swell far and 
wide her melodious alto. From the young 
and vigorous host that come from the two 
Americas there rings out such a triumphant 
tenor that a smile answers them on the face 
of Christ. And then Asia, old Asia, the 
mother of all religions, bows at the feet of 
Him who brought the true, and from her 
reverent host that outnumbers all the rest, 



184 BETTER THINGS FOR SONS OF GOD. 

the glorious climax rises, * ' He shall be 
King of kings, and Lord of lords, forever 
and forever. and ever and ever." Onward, 
ever onward rolls the glorious song, and as 
in my ears that choir keeps singing ever 
louder and more glad my soul beats 
high with exultation as I pledge it a part 
in that world - ending, heaven - enlarging 
chorus ; and to the sons of God who pray 
with me that that day may quickly come I 
would repeat over and over the message 
that commands my soul: The world, and 
the whole of it, for God and his sons. No 
less will satisfy the Father. No less will 
satisfy his sons. 



THE END. 



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